Tribal Football

Postecoglou demanding Spurs response against West Ham today

Postecoglou demanding Spurs response against West Ham today
Postecoglou demanding Spurs response against West Ham todayAction Plus
Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou is expecting a response against West Ham today after their defeat a fortnight ago at Brighton.

Postecoglou said earlier in the week he was a ready to "explode" as his players returned for training after their international commitments.

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He stated, "I was speaking metaphorically, as you can see because I am here I haven’t exploded. It is one of those where it is as much therapy as anything else, just get things off your chest. At the same time it is about giving the right sort of feedback.

"The emotion of what you are feeling straight after the game has dissipated 10 days later but obviously it is important the players get the appropriate feedback for what was a real sort of difficult game for us. As well as we did in the first half, we were really poor in the second half."

Postecoglou also said ahead of today's early kickoff: "By appropriate I mean you can’t just dismiss what happened in the first half and just focus on the second half. It would be different if it was a really poor performance all round. Then (it is), not easier, but the analysis can be straightforward. The question is 'why were we so good in the first half and so poor in the second?'

"The second half was more around we just didn’t look anything like ourselves. We were really passive with and without the ball. We lacked real conviction and courage in everything we did. It was almost like we felt like we had done enough. I hadn’t seen that before in us and it is a good lesson for the whole group that you need to make sure, irrespective of how a game is going, you stick to the core principles of your football.

"It is a timely reminder for us, particularly in any game of football and really in the first half we should have finished them off, when you don’t it is very easy for momentum to shift."