Ange Postecoglou has said the Tottenham squad still support his attacking philosophy and backed them to turn their season around after losing 4-3 to Chelsea on Sunday.
Spurs were 2-0 up after 11 minutes through goals from Dominic Solanke and Dejan Kulusevski but were unable to halt Chelsea’s stirring comeback as Jadon Sancho‘s first-half strike and Cole Palmer‘s 61st-minute penalty levelled the scores.
Enzo Fernández then put the away side in front before Palmer’s second spot-kick of the evening settled the contest.
Although Son Heung-Min scored a consolation goal in the sixth minute of added time, fans greeted the full-time whistle with boos and many had left even earlier after feeling resigned to Tottenham’s seventh league defeat of the season.
Postecoglou, who took charge at Tottenham in the summer of 2023 and guided them to fifth place in his first season, confronted angry Spurs supporters after Thursday’s 1-0 defeat at Bournemouth and pressure is mounting on the 59-year-old with the club 11th in the table and now seven points off the top four.
Tottenham have suffered a series of injury setbacks and lost Cristian Romero to a quad injury after only 15 minutes before Brennan Johnson went off with illness and Micky van de Ven was only able to play 79 minutes following a hamstring problem.
“It is a tough moment because there are all these tools you can possibly use as a manager when you are going through tough moments to turn things around and our limited resources from a playing perspective at the moment doesn’t allow us to do that so you have to find other ways,” Postecoglou told a news conference.
“It’s not through a lack of effort. The players are constantly out there because we can’t rotate. They are giving everything they can. It diminishes performances as well because they probably need a rest but we can’t give them a rest.
“I think it is something we need to tackle head on and keep pushing on. There is still plenty to play for us between now and January just to make sure we keep performing.
“I still sense within this squad there is a real conviction in what we are doing and if we maintain that we will turn our season around and hopefully at some point we hit some smoother waters in terms of some of the things that are happening at the moment.”
Postecoglou also voiced his frustration at referee Anthony Taylor’s decision not to punish Chelsea midfielder Moisés Caicedo for a late tackle on Pape Matar Sarr in the 34th minute. VAR official Jarred Gillett deemed Caicedo had not used excessive force in the tackle but Postecoglou said: “I think it’s kind of where we’re at with the current state of football, where people are just frozen to make big decisions. I think referees don’t want to make them because they’ll go to VAR and VAR doesn’t want to intervene, so you’re kind of left in no man’s land.
“I just don’t think, I have said it before, the technology has helped our game. I don’t see how it helps because It means instead of one person being in control of a game and you accepting that, it almost feels like no one is in control because everybody is scared to make a decision to overturn somebody else.
“Referees are scared to make decisions in case they get it wrong, VAR don’t want to intervene and I get that because you don’t want disruptions to the game. You just have to cop it.”