BEHIND THE SCENE – What Postecoglou kept yelling at Son, why he grabbed Cristian Romero and Maddison’s apology [Check Comment For Full Story Link]
Tottenham had got through the first 21 minutes without conceding a goal – the point at which they were 5-0 down a year ago at St James’ Park – so surely this would be better than that horror show?
Well no, not particularly. Within a noisy stadium, Eddie Howe’s men needed only 27% of the possession and just 185 passes to score four goals against a Spurs back four so generous that you would have been forgiven for thinking Cristian Stellini had selected them once again.
This latest defeat at Newcastle ended up being almost as woeful as its predecessor, simply because far more was expected this time around. It was a performance that showed up every crack and deficiency of a club still a long way off the one Ange Postecoglou expects to compete for the Premier League title next year.
The Australian’s system requires everyone to be switched on, playing their part, physical in their play and most of all brave in their passing and movement. Without that it looks one-dimensional with the same rigid attempts to get the ball out wide and open to any opposition who wants to knock a ball over the top to a willing runner.
At its best, the Postecoglou way is a high energy display of total football with players interchanging positions and carving opposition defences apart and keeping the ball high up the pitch, only allowing the odd counter-attack that can be mopped up by a speedy centre-back or covering team-mate.
That was certainly not the case in the heaviest defeat of the Postecoglou era so far. Other than a string of early Timo Werner chances, Spurs created little and again struggled against an organised, packed defence with quick counter-attacking players.
The Postecoglou system falters if the players lack the courage to pass between the lines and run into areas to receive the ball. They have to play fast risky forward balls out from the back to beat the press and break the lines and to provide them with options requires movement.
That is what the Australian has been getting his coaches to drill into the squad over the past eight or nine months more than anything, but in the face of the opposition his players can sometimes revert to type.
If there are no options and they play the ball backwards then they invite the opposition upon themselves and make life incredibly difficult.
Tottenham’s passing success rate numbers on Saturday across the squad where high. You would think that would be a good thing but instead it was simply indicative of the many short safe passes that Postecoglou’s players were attempting.
“Anyone who’s played here before knows what kind of game you’re in for when you come here,” said James Maddison. “It still kind of took us by surprise I guess. Just sloppy errors, we needed a bit more courage to be braver with the ball and play forward and not take the safe option of an easy pass backwards because that just invites pressure.
“At 0-0 I felt like there was space there to capitalise on. You get the feeling sometimes in a game as a player about the space in between the lines and in wide areas, but we didn’t capitalise on it and we played too safe. We didn’t play that line-breaking pass enough times and it cost us I think.”
That’s not to say Postecoglou is blameless. Just six days before he had reacted quickly to a failing performance with half-time changes which were successful but this time he just seemed to watch on as his team wilted under the pressure.
By his own admission, he now has a squad strong enough to change things around whenever he feels like it – and it was a far strong bench than Newcastle’s – but he allowed the game to run its course until six minutes after Spurs were 3-0 down, three players eventually coming on around that standard hour mark.
It was a day that showed up some of the aspects of the Postecoglou system that critics will point to, with the mistakes that will come with constant passing from the back, the gaps in behind the inverted full-backs, the open door for opposition players to counter with balls over the top of the high line and the set piece problems. The Tottenham head coach might not be concerned about it, but he cannot let the players begin to doubt what he’s building.
On the whole, Spurs’ away form is generally pretty good. They have lost just four games on the road in the Premier League this season, one more than Arsenal and Manchester City and the fourth fewest away losses in the competition.
Mainly there have been too many draws on the road, their total of six the highest in the league. Tottenham fans might have taken a draw before the game – they certainly would now – but what they were served up was never in danger of bringing a point back down south.
It was such a poor result that it knocked Tottenham out of the top four below Aston Villa without Unai Emery’s side needing to kick a ball. Spurs will now have to rely on Arsenal doing similar to Villa, the worst of all desires – to want your local rivals to win. Technically to also help the Premier League’s chances of getting Champions League football for the fifth place team in case they need it, Tottenham could do with the Gunners also beating Bayern Munich in midweek. Yes it feels wrong. This is not how football fandom is meant to work at all.
Tottenham’s own performance was one littered with errors from start to finish. The first goal came from Destiny Udogie being eased off the ball far too easily by Anthony Gordon and the England international’s pass through to Alexander Isak might have been eventually dealt with by Micky van de Ven, had the Dutchman not slipped awkwardly as soon as the Swede turned inside.
Spurs had barely kicked off from the restart when they gifted it back to Newcastle for a second goal. Those back at home were watching a replay of the first goal which TNT Sport producers suddenly had to cut away from to the sight of Gordon slotting home a second.
That’s because Pedro Porro had, without looking, attempted to lob a ball back into his own penalty area, either for Cristian Romero or Guglielmo Vicario and instead sent it straight to the feet of Gordon. Once again Van de Ven ran in and ended sliding on to his backside.
You know things are a complete mess when the team’s most reliable players are having a nightmare. It was the same at the other end, with the first three goals starting with the captain giving it away earlier in the build-up, starting a chain of errors from his team-mates.
Son Heung-min has been there for Tottenham so many times when they have needed him this season, but he struggled in the central role on Saturday. He touched the ball just 26 times and didn’t have a single shot at goal or a dribble forward.
Too often Postecoglou would have to call him back into his own half to give Vicario or the defence an option to pass to rather than boot it long where it was just lost every time, but that’s just not Son’s strength. Playing with his back to the play is something he has improved on in recent years but he’s not a strong, hold-up striker that the team can play off, he’s a driving force and more comfortable when he’s facing the goal.
So disappointing was Son’s display – he was by no means alone in that – that Postecoglou took him off after just 58 minutes as part of a triple change. The solemn look on the South Korean’s face said it all.
Recent team performances have made the decision not to bring in a natural striker to replace Harry Kane last summer all the more baffling. Postecoglou was keen to give Richarlison a chance in the role but that was pinning a lot of hope on a player who had missed 11 matches through injury the previous season and has so far missed another seven this campaign.
Even then the Brazilian is not a natural forward. With 11 goals this season he has still never been a prolific goalscorer. The 26-year-old has the physical capabilities though to act as a target man and Spurs are missing his aerial presence from defensive and attacking set pieces.
Alejo Veliz is the only striker Tottenham brought in during the summer, a youngster who played a handful of minutes from the bench before being sent to Sevilla on loan, where he is currently not even getting the experience of leaving the dugout.
Spurs are looking to bring in a striker this summer but it feels like they are paying the price for failing to – or deciding not to do so – when it became clear that Kane was heading off to Bavaria.
The goals have been shared among the team this campaign but Postecoglou would only have had to look at Isak to see what might have been in his Tottenham side with a natural goalscoring centre-forward in it.
The Swede has netted 21 goals this season in 34 matches, with 17 in 24 in the Premier League, and the 21st goal of his campaign came from the simplest of passes over the top from Bruno Guimaraes.
So open was the Tottenham defence that Isak started his run from the Newcastle half, killing any attempt to play him offside, and he ran on without any real obstruction or challenge as Vicario hesitated and decided to run back to his box. The striker gratefully accepted another gift of a goal.
Tottenham had got through the first 21 minutes without conceding a goal – the point at which they were 5-0 down a year ago at St James’ Park – so surely this would be better than that horror show?
Well no, not particularly. Within a noisy stadium, Eddie Howe’s men needed only 27% of the possession and just 185 passes to score four goals against a Spurs back four so generous that you would have been forgiven for thinking Cristian Stellini had selected them once again.
This latest defeat at Newcastle ended up being almost as woeful as its predecessor, simply because far more was expected this time around. It was a performance that showed up every crack and deficiency of a club still a long way off the one Ange Postecoglou expects to compete for the Premier League title next year.
The Australian’s system requires everyone to be switched on, playing their part, physical in their play and most of all brave in their passing and movement. Without that it looks one-dimensional with the same rigid attempts to get the ball out wide and open to any opposition who wants to knock a ball over the top to a willing runner.
At its best, the Postecoglou way is a high energy display of total football with players interchanging positions and carving opposition defences apart and keeping the ball high up the pitch, only allowing the odd counter-attack that can be mopped up by a speedy centre-back or covering team-mate.
That was certainly not the case in the heaviest defeat of the Postecoglou era so far. Other than a string of early Timo Werner chances, Spurs created little and again struggled against an organised, packed defence with quick counter-attacking players.
READ MORE: Every word Ange Postecoglou said on what concerned him about Tottenham defeat and Porro injury
READ MORE: Tottenham player ratings vs Newcastle – Son and Bissouma struggle with Porro poor before injury
The Postecoglou system falters if the players lack the courage to pass between the lines and run into areas to receive the ball. They have to play fast risky forward balls out from the back to beat the press and break the lines and to provide them with options requires movement.
That is what the Australian has been getting his coaches to drill into the squad over the past eight or nine months more than anything, but in the face of the opposition his players can sometimes revert to type.
If there are no options and they play the ball backwards then they invite the opposition upon themselves and make life incredibly difficult.
Tottenham’s passing success rate numbers on Saturday across the squad where high. You would think that would be a good thing but instead it was simply indicative of the many short safe passes that Postecoglou’s players were attempting.
“Anyone who’s played here before knows what kind of game you’re in for when you come here,” said James Maddison. “It still kind of took us by surprise I guess. Just sloppy errors, we needed a bit more courage to be braver with the ball and play forward and not take the safe option of an easy pass backwards because that just invites pressure.
“At 0-0 I felt like there was space there to capitalise on. You get the feeling sometimes in a game as a player about the space in between the lines and in wide areas, but we didn’t capitalise on it and we played too safe. We didn’t play that line-breaking pass enough times and it cost us I think.”
That’s not to say Postecoglou is blameless. Just six days before he had reacted quickly to a failing performance with half-time changes which were successful but this time he just seemed to watch on as his team wilted under the pressure.
By his own admission, he now has a squad strong enough to change things around whenever he feels like it – and it was a far strong bench than Newcastle’s – but he allowed the game to run its course until six minutes after Spurs were 3-0 down, three players eventually coming on around that standard hour mark.
It was a day that showed up some of the aspects of the Postecoglou system that critics will point to, with the mistakes that will come with constant passing from the back, the gaps in behind the inverted full-backs, the open door for opposition players to counter with balls over the top of the high line and the set piece problems. The Tottenham head coach might not be concerned about it, but he cannot let the players begin to doubt what he’s building.
On the whole, Spurs’ away form is generally pretty good. They have lost just four games on the road in the Premier League this season, one more than Arsenal and Manchester City and the fourth fewest away losses in the competition.
Mainly there have been too many draws on the road, their total of six the highest in the league. Tottenham fans might have taken a draw before the game – they certainly would now – but what they were served up was never in danger of bringing a point back down south.
It was such a poor result that it knocked Tottenham out of the top four below Aston Villa without Unai Emery’s side needing to kick a ball. Spurs will now have to rely on Arsenal doing similar to Villa, the worst of all desires – to want your local rivals to win. Technically to also help the Premier League’s chances of getting Champions League football for the fifth place team in case they need it, Tottenham could do with the Gunners also beating Bayern Munich in midweek. Yes it feels wrong. This is not how football fandom is meant to work at all.
Tottenham’s own performance was one littered with errors from start to finish. The first goal came from Destiny Udogie being eased off the ball far too easily by Anthony Gordon and the England international’s pass through to Alexander Isak might have been eventually dealt with by Micky van de Ven, had the Dutchman not slipped awkwardly as soon as the Swede turned inside.
Spurs had barely kicked off from the restart when they gifted it back to Newcastle for a second goal. Those back at home were watching a replay of the first goal which TNT Sport producers suddenly had to cut away from to the sight of Gordon slotting home a second.
That’s because Pedro Porro had, without looking, attempted to lob a ball back into his own penalty area, either for Cristian Romero or Guglielmo Vicario and instead sent it straight to the feet of Gordon. Once again Van de Ven ran in and ended sliding on to his backside.
You know things are a complete mess when the team’s most reliable players are having a nightmare. It was the same at the other end, with the first three goals starting with the captain giving it away earlier in the build-up, starting a chain of errors from his team-mates.
Son Heung-min has been there for Tottenham so many times when they have needed him this season, but he struggled in the central role on Saturday. He touched the ball just 26 times and didn’t have a single shot at goal or a dribble forward.
Too often Postecoglou would have to call him back into his own half to give Vicario or the defence an option to pass to rather than boot it long where it was just lost every time, but that’s just not Son’s strength. Playing with his back to the play is something he has improved on in recent years but he’s not a strong, hold-up striker that the team can play off, he’s a driving force and more comfortable when he’s facing the goal.
So disappointing was Son’s display – he was by no means alone in that – that Postecoglou took him off after just 58 minutes as part of a triple change. The solemn look on the South Korean’s face said it all.
Recent team performances have made the decision not to bring in a natural striker to replace Harry Kane last summer all the more baffling. Postecoglou was keen to give Richarlison a chance in the role but that was pinning a lot of hope on a player who had missed 11 matches through injury the previous season and has so far missed another seven this campaign.
Even then the Brazilian is not a natural forward. With 11 goals this season he has still never been a prolific goalscorer. The 26-year-old has the physical capabilities though to act as a target man and Spurs are missing his aerial presence from defensive and attacking set pieces.
Alejo Veliz is the only striker Tottenham brought in during the summer, a youngster who played a handful of minutes from the bench before being sent to Sevilla on loan, where he is currently not even getting the experience of leaving the dugout.
Spurs are looking to bring in a striker this summer but it feels like they are paying the price for failing to – or deciding not to do so – when it became clear that Kane was heading off to Bavaria.
The goals have been shared among the team this campaign but Postecoglou would only have had to look at Isak to see what might have been in his Tottenham side with a natural goalscoring centre-forward in it.
The Swede has netted 21 goals this season in 34 matches, with 17 in 24 in the Premier League, and the 21st goal of his campaign came from the simplest of passes over the top from Bruno Guimaraes.
So open was the Tottenham defence that Isak started his run from the Newcastle half, killing any attempt to play him offside, and he ran on without any real obstruction or challenge as Vicario hesitated and decided to run back to his box. The striker gratefully accepted another gift of a goal.
When it was put to Postecoglou that his team looked so vulnerable on the break, he said: “We allowed them to dictate the way the game was played, ended up being a transition game, a lot of it was self-inflicted by us, we weren’t brave on the ball, we’ve been really good this year at understanding that when we have the ball we can be a threat, certain players, we just shied away from that today.
“When you do that you allow the game to be played on Newcastle’s terms. When that happens especially away from home it’s hard for us to then claw it back once it’s got away from us.”
Spurs are not showing that clinical instinct consistently. After his impressive display against Nottingham Forest, Timo Werner put in the kind of performance that harked back to the Chelsea days that ruined the confidence of a once prolific goalscorer at RB Leipzig.
Early in the match Brennan Johnson delivered a first-time cross to him at the back post and instead of instinctively attacking it with his head the German attempted a far more complicated volley on the run which ended up high in the back of the stand.
Not long after he was picked out by a lovely ball from the outside of Son’s right foot only to blast his shot straight at the South Korean’s feet to send his captain crashing to the floor. Werner’s best opportunity of that spell came after when Maddison teed him up in the box, only to scuff his shot across the six-yard box rather than anywhere near the goal.Had the German taken one or two of those chances from good positions then the game may well have taken a different course, with Newcastle forced to come out of their tight formation as happened in the reverse fixture in December.
Werner offers plenty of attacking threat down the left but it is that lack of confidence in his finishing that will be the main cause of pause when it comes to deciding whether to bring him in permanently for around £15m, particularly with what could be higher wages than many in the Spurs squad. Let’s be honest, if you’re life depended on Werner putting the ball in the net, you’re likely to be saying your goodbyes.
Johnson was barely used in the first half, Spurs mostly choosing to go down the left-hand side through Udogie and Werner. Perhaps Porro’s injury worry – he kept looking across at the bench in the first half and at one point was pointing to team-mates to pass to others rather than him – ended up stopping the players from spreading the ball to the right, also killing Johnson’s chances of getting the ball.
The Wales international touched the ball only 24 times, fewer touches than any other Spurs starting player yet two more than the clinical Isak and Newcastle midfielder Sean Longstaff. Johnson switched to the centre of the attack after Son went off but his team-mates rarely found him.
Tottenham had only two shots on target from their 11 in the game, one from Maddison and the other from Dejan Kulusevski, both sailing centrally and safely into the arms of Martin Dubravka.
Spurs’ midfield provided neither attacking help nor defensive cover for the back four. Postecoglou had used two different pairings alongside Maddison against Forest and had to decide which blend would work at St James’ Park.
Yves Bissouma and Pape Matar Sarr had been excellent in the reverse fixture against Newcastle in December but struggled against Nuno Espirito Santo’s side last weekend. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur had changed that game after replacing them for the second half.
Hojbjerg has become the Eric Dier of sorts of the midfield. Postecoglou clearly does not see the Dane as part of his long-term future and with his contract approaching its final 12 months, he is giving others their chances.
The problem is that, unlike Dier, Hojbjerg has consistently been able to come in and impact matches and has deserved more than his six Premier League starts this season, especially when Bissouma has struggled to find any kind of consistency.
So Postecoglou went for Bentancur and Bissouma as his pairing and they never really took a grip of the game in the middle of the park with Maddison, who at least played four key passes. To give some context though, Gordon played eight for Newcastle, with a goal and two assists.
“Newcastle were good, credit to them, I thought they were really good today,” said Postecoglou after the game. “We just didn’t really get a grip of the game at all. Right from the start it felt like we allowed Newcastle to dictate the way the game was played, we never really wrestled control at any stage. We paid a price for that.”
When the individual errors were pointed out, the Australian responded: “I think that’s just kind of a symptom of the whole collective of it. I don’t think it was one person that was at fault today. It was about us as a collective. We never really got to grips with the game of football. We let it get away from us. And like I said, we paid a price for it.”