Ange Postecoglou has admitted that Tottenham lost their way a bit in the first half after they took the lead but praised his players for the way they controlled the second half and kept plugging away.
The game started at a high tempo, with both sides pressing from the front and creating plenty of chances.
However, after Curtis Jones was sent off in the 26th minute, the away team decided to push people back and play on the counterattack. Postecoglou admitted that his team did not handle the opponent’s tactical change well.
When Diogo Jota also received his marching orders in the 69th minute, Liverpool naturally decided to attack with all nine men behind the ball, and the Lilywhites were trying to break them down.
In the end, Tottenham happened to score a late goal, Joel Matip crossed for Pedro Porro to score an own goal.
There is always room for improvement for Postecoglou
Postecoglou said he was pleased with the maturity and composure his team showed after the break.
When asked how happy he was that Tottenham found goals without James Maddison, Yves Bissouma and Son Heung-min on the field, the Australian told Football.London:
“We want to be a team that has many ways to score goals and we have to create that because Harry leaving so many goals will automatically leave the team.
“We weren’t going to replace that with one player. We needed to make sure the way we set up as a team gave us the opportunity to score in different areas. I thought we started the game really well and so did Liverpool. I thought it was a good game at the start and then they went down to 10-men.
“Until we scored I thought we were really good and then we lost our way a little bit. We rushed things, overdid things and were a bit too individual in that back end of the first half and it allowed them to get an equaliser.
“The thing about Liverpool is even with 10-men they are still the same threat because they prey on mistakes, have world-class players in transition and we were a bit naïve I thought, but second half we were better.
“We controlled the game a lot better, played in our half, we were a bit more calm and probably didn’t vary our attacks enough but having said that Alisson pulled off some unbelievable saves and we just had to stay calm.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I thought we got it tactically wrong in the second half, particularly after Liverpool went down to nine men. Instead of stretching the pitch and creating overloads out wide using the Udogie and Porro, our full-backs continued to be inverted and take up positions centrally, which made it easier for Liverpool to defend.
