Ange Postecoglou looks like a “defeated” man at Tottenham with his team “having fallen off a cliff”, Jamie Redknapp has claimed.
The Spurs boss looked frustrated during and after their 2-0 defeat to Chelsea on Thursday night.
A touchline outburst at his players and a brusque conversation with reporters summed up his anger, with Chelsea winning thanks to goals from Trevoh Chalobah and Nicolas Jackson.
It leaves Spurs seven points off the top four after three consecutive defeats and just two wins in seven games.
“I look at the manager and he looks defeated,” Redknapp told Sky Sports.
Jamie Redknapp claims Ange Postecoglou looks like a ‘beaten man’ at Tottenham
Postecoglou was furious during and after the Spurs’ 2-0 loss to the Spurs on Thursday night.
‘I thought, “wow, that’s pretty damning.” I don’t like seeing a coach like that. When you manage Tottenham (he hasn’t been there long), a lot of people get like that after a while, but that’s very early.
“The players are not playing at the level they had at the beginning of the season. If you want to compete and have played as few games as Tottenham, you must perform every week. It’s really disappointing when I see how good they were at the beginning of the season.
“They didn’t win individual battles, they didn’t win enough second balls, they were very passive, especially in the first half in a derby where you have to win those battles, play forward and look to pass with a bit of urgency.” . They didn’t do all the basics.
“When Ange took over, I was watching football thinking: ‘This is almost revolutionary.’ You’ve got two men coming into midfield, the two full-backs looking fantastic, people playing at such a high level.
But now they have fallen off a cliff. “They have won two of their last seven since beating Aston Villa in one of the best performances I have seen this season.”
The 4-0 win at Villa in March looked like a crucial day in the race for the top four, but Spurs have floundered since.
Now that the chance of fifth place in the Champions League has been extinguished, Spurs have to close a seven-point gap on Unai Emery’s team, with just one game in hand and four rounds remaining.
Redknapp believes Spurs have no excuses and believes the team will have to strengthen in the summer to withstand a European campaign and face another challenge.
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He said: “The other thing is they’ve only played 37 games this year.” They lost in the Carabao Cup in the second round and lost in the fourth round of the FA Cup to Manchester City. There is no fatigue involved.
‘That was a bit of a worrying interview from Ange. I’ve been watching her interviews for a while and it slowly seems like she’s not enjoying them as much as she did when she first arrived.
‘I still feel that Tottenham have the players and the structure there. But they definitely need to strengthen the team. The submarines that are coming are not at the level they need.’
Postecoglou went on a rampage against Pape Matar Sarr and Cristian Romero in the first half, shouting: “Stop passing him back.”
While Tottenham are one of the most interesting teams to watch in the Premier League, their defensive problems are bleak.
Postecoglou’s men have conceded 54 goals this season, almost double Arsenal’s 28.
Several players have fallen at the wrong time: Micky van de Ven failed in their 4-0 thrashing at Newcastle, James Maddison had less impact than before his injury (and went down against Chelsea) and Son Heung-min scored only twice in his last seven games.
Postecoglou later accepted blame on behalf of his players, saying, “It’s up to me to fix it.” Tonight we had bigger problems than set pieces. We lacked faith and conviction in our game.
Once again, Spurs failed to protect themselves from set-piece tricks, just days after Postecoglou said he would not change his way of thinking.
Karen Carney said she had never seen the Tottenham manager so frustrated before
They are seven points behind Aston Villa with one game less and four games left to catch them.
“I don’t know if it’s a lack of confidence, but we’re not playing with the mentality we need to play the football we want.” It wasn’t good enough and I have to take responsibility for that.
“When we put in a performance like we did in the first half, it meant that my message wasn’t getting through.”
When asked what that message was, Postecoglou said: “Come on mate, we didn’t play well, do you want me to write you a file on where it went wrong?”
“I feel like we’ve lost a bit of faith and conviction in our football, and it’s up to me to change that.”
“It wasn’t about conceding the (first) goal, but about the way we played football and we weren’t good enough. That’s up to me.
‘We’ve been in a bind for a while, that’s part of our challenge and part of our growth.
‘We have to go out and perform and sometimes you have to try hard. Today we were poor.’