Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou didn’t hold anything back when angrily scolding his sluggish players during a pre-season friendly.
Spurs beat a K-League XI 4-3 on Wednesday to continue their preparations ahead of the new Premier League campaign. Spurs tailed off towards the end of last season before finishing fifth and Postecoglou wants more from his second term in North London.
Postecoglou named a strong starting XI for Wednesday’s friendly which included South Korean icon Son Heung-Min, Dejan Kulusevski and Brennan Johnson as well as new £30million signing Archie Gray. But after they failed to score inside the opening 25 minutes, the Australian-Greek boss wasn’t happy.
During a drinks break in the sweltering Seoul heat, Postecoglou let rip and told his players: “I’ve got one f***ing thing to say. We go and have a crack, man for man.”His bellowing message clearly got through, as within minutes of the restart Kulusevski put Spurs 1-0 up before Son soon scored twice. The K-League All Stars hit back with two goals early in the second half before 19-year-old forward Will Lankshear gave Tottenham breathing room again heading into the closing stages.
The best players in South Korea’s top flight pulled one back but it wasn’t enough to stop Spurs from coming away with their fourth successive pre-season win, their second victory on tour in Asia. In his post-match press conference, Postecoglou was asked to explain why he addressed his players so furiously.”[It was] nothing really specific,” the former Celtic manager replied. “It was more just about making sure we kept pressing on, because with the conditions the way they are and the training loads been pretty high, I didn’t want us to back off in that moment and really [wanted to] push to half-time just more for our fitness than anything else.Postecoglou added: “I thought it was a decent game, obviously with the conditions and you know we’ve been training pretty hard so we didn’t probably look as sharp as we have been, but within that, I thought the players still gave everything and some good passages of play. The game was very open at the end I think, very stretched.
“As I said, the conditions were really difficult for the players but they never stopped, they kept trying to play and I think overall we were better for that game.”