An irritable Ange Postecoglou said his Tottenham players were ‘nowhere near good enough’ after their 2-0 defeat to Chelsea, but took responsibility for the lacklustre performance at Stamford Bridge.
Trevor Chalobah and Nicolas Jackson both scored headed goals on a comfortable evening for Mauricio Pochettino’s depleted Chelsea side, who entered the contest on the back of three games without victory.
The visitors will have been targeting a big reaction after back-to-back losses in the Premier League at the hands of Newcastle and Arsenal, but it was nowhere to be seen in west London and Postecoglou’s frustration turned to anger towards the end of the first half.
TV cameras captured a furious Postecoglou tearing into Pape Matar Sarr and Cristian Romero shortly after Chalobah’s opener, with the 58-year-old giving his players the full hairdryer treatment from his technical area.
But Postecoglou’s fury made little difference on the night and the result leaves the north London outfit seven points adrift of fourth-placed Aston Villa with four games remaining of their campaign.
‘No, it’s not good enough and, look, I’ve got to take responsibility for that. That’s on me,’ Postecoglou told Sky Sports in a prickly post-match interview.
‘I’m the manager, I’m the one that’s putting them out there and it was nowhere near good enough.
‘As I said, I’ve got to have a look at solving all this and seeing how I can have more of an impact.’
Asked where exactly Tottenham fell short, Postecoglou replied: ‘Well when we put on a performance like we did in the first half it means obviously my message isn’t getting through.
‘That’s for me to address.’
The Tottenham manager was clearly unhappy with the line of questioning from Sky Sports’ Patrick Davison when asked to spell out his message that ‘didn’t get through’ to the players.
‘Come on, mate. We didn’t play well. What do you want? Me to sit here and write you a dossier on where we went wrong?’ he snapped back.
‘Like I said, I’ll take responsibility, we were poor in the first. I still think their goal was a foul but nobody cares about that.
‘But we didn’t deserve anything more than that and, like I said, that’s on me.’
Postecoglou was keen to stress that his fit of rage had nothing to do with conceding, rather his players’ approach in a poor first-half display.
‘It wasn’t about conceding the goal, it was about our approach to our football,’ he explained.
‘We were just nowhere near good enough, nowhere near as positive as we need to be and, again, that’s on me.’
Tottenham have been guilty of conceding far too easily from set pieces throughout the campaign and Postecoglou did not appreciate being asked by Davison why he seemingly wasn’t ‘interested’ in fixing the problem.
‘That’s a really good question,’ he sarcastically replied.
‘I didn’t say I wasn’t interested, I said it’s not my priority but that’s okay. If people think that what we’re missing is set pieces that’s fine. I’ll do my job.’
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