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Ange Postecoglou was booed by furious Tottenham fans as the manager confronted the away end after the 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth in the Premier League.
Tottenham were outplayed at the Vitality Stadium and fell to 10th in the table – with the 4-0 victory at Manchester City their only win in the last six games in all competitions.
Postecoglou went to applaud the away end at full-time but was then involved in an exchange with Spurs supporters. The Australian nodded his head and pointed to his chest, appearing to ask “me?” before raising his thumb. Postecoglou said he received some “pretty direct feedback”, which he said could not repeat, but added that he did not like what he heard.
When asked about what happened at full-time, the manager said: “They are disappointed, rightly so. They gave me some direct feedback which I guess is taken on board.” Asked what was said, Postecoglou added: “Probably not for here, mate.
He continued: “I’ve got no issue with it. I didn’t like what was being said because I’m a human being. But you’ve got to cop it. I’ve been around long enough to know that if things don’t go well, you’ve got to understand the frustration and disappointment. They’re right to be disappointed tonight because again we’ve let a game of football get away from us. That’s ok, I’m ok with all of that.”
Tottenham go to high-flying Chelsea on Sunday and also play Manchester United in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup and host Premier League leaders Liverpool before Christmas. Spurs have been hampered by injuries, particularly in defence, with Postecoglou also losing Ben Davies to a hamstring injury during the defeat at Bournemouth.
Spurs conceded another goal from a set-piece as Dean Huijsen was left unmarked at the back post to score the only goal of the game. Bournemouth had enough chances to increase their lead as Postecoglou criticised his team for continuing to “make things difficult for ourselves” and “shoot ourselves in the foot”.
“It is not good enough,” Postecoglou said. “We again fell into the trap of starting the game really well, we were in control and then we conceded a really poor goal.
“Then we kind of lost our way a little bit and allowed Bournemouth to play the game that they wanted to. We had our moments in the second half but we could not get a goal.
“I don’t know if they had more urgency but we have this sort of propensity to shoot ourselves in the foot when we should be controlling games. They are hard to beat here and what you should not do is give them a goal that gives them the momentum they need.
“We started to play with a bit more conviction at the beginning of the second half and made some good chances. Again we made things difficult for ourselves by allowing the opposition to take the game in the direction that they want.
“They are all big games coming up. We have to get ourselves out of the space we are in at the minute where we can’t get a real grip on the season.”
On Davies’ injury, which could leave Tottenham with one fit centre-back for the trip to Chelsea, Postecoglou said: “It looks like he’s done his hamstring. Him and Radu [Dragusin] have played every game. It’s the one position we can’t rotate. He’ll obviously be out for a period of time now, we’ll just have to wait and see how long it is. It’s a consequence of having the squad we have at the moment.”
Postecoglou finished with a message to the Spurs fans and said: “All I can say is I’m really disappointed with tonight and I’m determined to get it right and I’ll keep fighting until we do.”
