Ange Postecoglou has been speaking in his press conference following Tottenham's woeful second half performance to lose 3-2 at Brighton in the Premier League and we've got every word he said.
Tottenham opened the scoring on Sunday within 24 minutes when James Maddison won a ball back in the Brighton half, fed Dominic Solanke and the striker played a perfect ball through to Brennan Johnson, whose first-time finish made it six goals in as many games. After a spell of Brighton pressure, Spurs got a second goal when Solanke sent Timo Werner away down the left and he pulled it back inside to Maddison to curl in a low shot that the diving Brighton goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen fumbled into the net.
Brighton grabbed a goal back early in the second half through messy Spurs defending. Micky van de Ven missed a chance to intercept a bouncing cross into the box and then Destiny Udogie made a mess of his attempted clearance and the ball fell to Yankuba Minteh to fire low into the bottom right corner of the net. The hosts levelled before the hour mark. First Kaouru Mitoma found a way through some weak defending before Georginio Rutter ran on to his pass, skipped past a few half-hearted tackles before shooting into the bottom corner.
Only five minutes or so later it was 3-2 to Brighton as Danny Welbeck headed home. Udogie and Rodrigo Bentancur were easily beaten by Rutter and he picked out the unmarked striker to head in the winner.
Here's every word Postecoglou said in his press conference at the Amex Stadium after the game.
What do you put that second half turnaround down to?
Look, we didn't do what you need to do at this level, it's kind of non-negotiable. We just weren't competitive. We didn't win our duels, we lacked intensity, we didn't deliver the things you need to at this level, the basics of the game, and paid the price for it.
Was there complacency?
Not really sure. But wherever it comes from, it doesn't really matter, it's irrelevant. It's unacceptable at the end of the day. You can kind of understand that you're not going to win every game. But there's the manner you lose games. And that's the first time since I've been here that we've lost the game in that manner. And like I said, unacceptable."
What can you do about it?
There's a lot I can do about it. That's why I'm in the role. If I couldn't do anything about it I'd get somebody else to sit here."
The team has improved defensively this season, does that make those goals conceded hurt even more?
All of it it's disappointing. Like I said, there are certain elements of this team that have been pretty consistent throughout my tenure, and that is one, even on our not-so-good days we've always fought and been competitive. I think that's been a non-negotiable. Like I said, today's the first day I actually felt like we didn't deliver in those areas. Whether that's defensively, whether that's with the ball. Like I said, sport is as much about competition as it is about anything else. And if you don't compete, you allow the opponent to overrun you in that manner, you're not going to get anything out of it.
Did you sense at half-time that this was about to happen?
Well like I said, I haven't seen it before, and I certainly didn't feel like that's the way the game was going to go. You understand that at 2-0 obviously they're going to come out and be fairly aggressive in their approach, but that's not the first time we've faced that and we've usually dealt with it pretty well. But obviously today we failed to do the things we needed to do.
Were you tempted to make your subs earlier as the game was turning?
Yeah I could have. But... all these things... are totally irrelevant to me. Substitutions and all those kind of things. If you're not competitive, it doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to get rewards, you don't deserve to win. We didn't deserve on our second-half performance, irrespective of subs or anything else, to get something out of the game. But I think if you do get something out of the game, you're falsely rewarded and I don't want to get falsely rewarded.
Is it games like where you miss Son and Richy?
Nah, got nothing to do with it, absolutely zero to do with it. If we were missing them then we wouldn't have played like we did in the first half, or like we have in the last few games. So it's got nothing to do with it. Like I said, there's a certain level of competitiveness you need to bring in every contest, irrespective of the level, and we didn't do that in the second 45. And rightly so, we got punished for it.
The chance that Brennan Johnson had in the first half, did you feel if that had gone in then that could have been that?
Potentially, we should have put the game to bed in the first half. We certainly had the dominance and the chances, but if that just masks what I saw in the second half then it doesn't....I mean certain things will always reveal themselves over the course of time. I've got to deal with what happened in the second half. That's much more important to me than the fact that in the first we were that dominant. We probably should have had the game done and dusted by then.
Have you learned something new about your team?
I don't know if I learned something new but I certainly experienced something new. With all these things, straight after a game you're emotional about it. That's probably the most disappointing loss I've had since I've been here, in terms of the way we went about it and it's something I need to assess.
Your team was so good in the first half to watch as a neutral, but the contrast was the thing that stood out in the second half?
That's a real stark reminder of what elite sport is about. The core of it is competitive. If you're not competitive it doesn't matter how good you are or how good you think you are, you're going to trip up. We didn't do the things, aside from the football, we didn't do the things that we've prided ourselves on to get to the position we're in.
Have you said all of this in the dressing room to the players?
Yeah, feedback is always what I believe. I don't hide things. I'm sure the players are disappointed, but I don't really care about that. They should be disappointing. Our supporters are disappointed, I'm disappointed, but I want them to understand football is not about losing a game of football, that happens. The disappointment comes from us not doing the very basics of what's expected at the highest level from a competitive standpoint.
Are you suggesting that after a couple of positive results, there was a bit of overconfidence from the players?
Look, it's not a couple of positive results. It was five wins, let's just keep things in context here. I understand the extremes of what we do. What I'm saying is that we didn't do the basics of everything we've done to get to this point, good, bad or otherwise. Even when we didn't win at Newcastle, we played well and fought hard to the last second to win that game of football. We didn't do that today and every time we've played that's been an element of our game but I didn't see that today. Why has that happened? The reasons, we can go into a million different aspects and in the cold light of day there may be some logic to it and it may be what you're saying. Again for me that's irrelevant. It's for me to address and fix and the responsibility falls at my feet and that's what I need to do.
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