Tottenham Hotspur slumped to defeat in the North London derby, failing to complete a stunning comeback in a 3-2 defeat.
North London derby day is always one of the biggest games in the calendar for Tottenham fans.
This one felt even bigger though as Tottenham needed a result after seeing Aston Villa drop two points against Chelsea on Saturday.
Throwing a spanner in the world for Arsenal and their title challenge would have been nice too, but Tottenham’s main motivation was a top-four finish.
Sadly, the first half just left Tottenham with too much to do as Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s own goal but Arsenal in front before Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz also found the net.
3-0 down at half time, Tottenham needed a miracle and were handed hope when David Raya gifted Cristian Romero a goal.
Son Heung-min buried a penalty late on to give Tottenham late momentum but it just wasn’t enough to complete the comeback.
Ange Postecoglou on Tottenham message
Tottenham’s defending – especially on set pieces – just wasn’t good enough and Arsenal took full advantage.
Boss Ange Postecoglou may not want to hire a set-piece coach but the calls will only grow louder if Spurs continue to defend like this.
Postecoglou has now opened up on what he said at half time as Tottenham reflected on a 3-0 deficit.
That is the kind of situation you never want to be in and coming up with the right words can be a real test for any manager.
Postecoglou has told beIN Sports that his message to the players at half time was to go out and give the fans a better performance.
The Australian didn’t want to just roll over and accept defeat and felt that his players did really fight to turn the game around and gave the fans something to believe in.
“My main sort of message was that we owed our fans something,” said Postecoglou. “We couldn’t go out in the second half and just accept our fate, we had to go out there and show some fight and some resilience, which I thought the lads did to be fair and gave the supporters a bit of hope. That was the main message, not to go out there and just accept it wasn’t going to be our day, but to go out there and see if we could turn things around,” he added.
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Tottenham cannot afford to end season on a slump
Tottenham lost 4-0 at Newcastle United before the international break and this latest defeat will sting.
Heavy losses and derby day defeats are a bad mix and Postecoglou is in danger of having his first season end in a real slump.
The next week is tricky too; a trip to Chelsea on Thursday night and then visiting Liverpool next weekend.
Two more defeats would rule Tottenham out of top four contention and leave a rather sour taste in the mouth after such an encouraging start to the campaign.
Postecoglou needs to find some answers one way or another; whether it’s a set piece coach, a different approach, different lineups, whatever it may be as Spurs do not want to end the season on a losing run.
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