Postecoglou reflects on ‘disappointing day’ as Spurs ‘kept West Ham in the game’ in latest Prem loss
Ange Postecoglou thinks Tottenham Hotspur “lacked conviction” in attacking areas as they “kept West Ham in the game” before losing to their London rivals.
Postecoglou became everyone’s favourite loveable Aussie at the start of this season as he successfully overhauled Tottenham’s style of play and had them playing thrilling football.
This enabled them to make an unbeaten start to the season as they were sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League.
Optimism at Spurs has waned somewhat of late, though. They have been seriously impacted by injuries as they lost three games in a row before their 3-3 draw against Man City at the weekend.
Tottenham took the momentum from the six-goal thriller against City into Thursday night’s home game against West Ham as they were dominant in the first half.
Returning defender Cristian Romero headed Spurs in front early on and they arguably should have been more goals ahead at the break but missed opportunities made them settle for a 1-0 lead.
West Ham punished the hosts for this in the second half as they capitalised on some suspect Spurs defending to complete a dramatic turnaround.
Jarrod Bowen and James Ward-Prowse got on the scoresheet in their 2-1 win, which sees ninth-placed West Ham move five points clear of Chelsea. Spurs meanwhile are still fifth but they are now winless in five Premier League games.
Speaking post-match, Postecoglou admitted Spurs “lacked some real conviction in the box” against West Ham.
“It is another game where we were well in control and probably should have scored more goals. We kept West Ham in the game,” Postecoglou said on Amazon Prime.
“We created a lot of chances to score goals. We lacked some real conviction in the box and conceded two soft goals. They were pretty much self-inflicted.
“We have to be better in the box and the decisions we make and have a lot more conviction in our finishing. Disappointing for the fans and disappointing for us in terms of the progress we are trying to make. We still have a long way to go and days like today show that.
“Today was a disappointing day.”
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David Moyes meanwhile credited his side’s “huge performance” as they “just about scraped it”.
“Huge performance because of the quality of the opposition. We were up against it tonight. We had to dig in. Thankfully we just about scraped it,” Moyes said.
“The quality Tottenham showed in the first half, I don’t know if we touched the ball for eight or nine minutes.
“We gained a bit of confidence once we got some passes. We wanted to get after them a bit more but by the same breath we were cautious about them picking us off.
“We are a team who can give some of the good teams a bloody nose, we have that in us.”
