What Ange Postecoglou did after Tottenham's Alkmaar defeat and the crucial Cristian Romero decision
This was as bad a night for Ange Postecoglou as it was for Tottenham Hotspur and he knew it.
The Australian hung back slightly behind the players as the group went over to acknowledge the 950 travelling Spurs fans who had spent plenty of money once again to be served up dross on a European night on the road.
In his press conference within the AFAS Stadion after the game, Postecoglou knew that there was very little he could say. For the long list of reasons - or what his critics say are excuses - behind many of the club's struggles this season had all but vanished on Thursday night.
Spurs had eight days to recharge and prepare every tactical aspect possible for this game and Postecoglou had the strongest squad available to him in months. His bench was bursting with talent and it was a squad that had more than enough to do the job in Alkmaar.
Yet it didn't. There was no little irony to the fact that Troy Parrott, jettisoned by Spurs in the summer without even a conversation with Postecoglou, caused more problems for his old club's defence than the five expensive Tottenham attackers used on the night managed across the entire game.
This was another away night in Europe that showcased a Spurs team looking like a deer in the floodlights and seemingly utterly homesick just a 40 minute flight from the UK.
The Lilywhites had laboured at Ferencvaros, were ripped apart at Galatasaray, outfought for long periods at Rangers and almost threw it away in Hoffenheim after a bright start.
Spurs seem scared by the combination of noise and a time difference, their confidence drained, their bravery dimmed and their creativity flatlining.
This loss in Alkmaar made it 18 defeats for the season - far, far too many for this club - and this would have been the most painful for Postecoglou.
The message from the Australian and all of his players in their post-match interviews contained the same phrase - "nowhere near the level" - and its likely what he said in the dressing room but the Tottenham supporters are sick of hearing that phrase.
Likewise when captain Son Heung-min came out after this latest disappointment and said it had to be a wake-up call. How many wake-up calls does one team need before you fear they are never going to arise from their slumber?
AZ have been strong at home this season in the Europa League, beating every team they've come up against in the competition on their own turf, including Roma, Galatasaray (after a draw in the first encounter), Jose Mourinho's Fenerbahce, Elfsborg and Ferencvaros, and now Tottenham.
Spurs should have done better though and at least have offered something to lay a glove on their hosts.
It was another night in which the older outfield Spurs heads went missing. Son and James Maddison as captain and vice-captain were particularly anonymous on an evening when they were needed the most and Rodrigo Bentancur was barely any better. The Uruguayan will miss the second leg after picking up another yellow card in the competition, but if he would have only repeated this performance then he won't be missed.
Only Guglielmo Vicario and some of the younger players like Lucas Bergvall - recovering well during the game after his unfortunate own goal that somehow is the only thing separating the teams, while Archie Gray and Djed Spence also managed to at least show they were trying to make something happen.
Vicario is always passionate and hyped up and that brought a miscalculated attempt after the final whistle to try to get the fans behind the team. The Italian repeatedly pumped his arms up and down in an attempt to rouse them.
After a moment of trying to work out exactly what the goalkeeper was doing, the supporters did exactly what you would expect from almost a thousand people who had spent hundreds if not more to come and watch their team barely string passes together or bother to move in any threatening way in order to earn their wages.
The fans shouted their disappointment back at Vicario and the players. The Italian tried again before turning and marching off with his face like thunder. The Spurs stopper will have been feeling the pain of defeat and the miserable display in front of him during the 90-plus minutes and after stepping back inside for a while he appreciated the supporters' anger.
"I can understand the disappointment for the night because we didn't play our football," he said. "So I can understand the frustration of the fans, but we still have a lot to play for, especially in the second leg. It's just a way of trying to stay together because we have the opportunity to go through to the next round.
"They can [be critical]. They have to be, they must be disappointed for the game we played tonight but we still have another game to play against AZ at our place, so it's the moment to stick together now because we can go through this round."
This was a night when very little of the football Postecoglou wants to bring to Tottenham was on display. It was not brave, it was not relentless and there was very little movement off the ball with some players hiding behind opponents rather making themselves available at times.
"It wasn’t great from us tonight. Pretty much all facets of the game," Postecoglou told football.london, who asked why there was such a lack of penetration in the team's play. "We didn’t really get to grips with any part of the game. We struggled to gain any momentum with the ball, we weren’t as aggressive as we needed to be without the ball.
"It was a tricky surface but having said that we kind of knew that from yesterday and yeah we just didn’t tackle the challenges we had out there in a real positive way. That allowed AZ to get into a rhythm, which when you’re playing away from home, it is difficult to stem the tide."
Bringing up the surface did not help the Australian's cause with anyone. As he said, Spurs would have known that from the training session they had the night before and it's the old cliche but both sides have to compete on the same surface. You simply have to adapt.
football.london asked Postecoglou why on such a big night, the players just couldn't seem to rouse themselves.
"Look, it’s a combination of things, but we’ll analyse it and have a look at the areas where we struggled with, but it’s fair to say yeah it was nowhere near the level it needed to be," he said.
There's that phrase again, one we've heard too many times this season after lacklustre displays in games Spurs should have won, particularly those matches around the injury crisis rather than within it.
This was a day when his players gave him very little but equally Postecoglou did little to really change the course of the game.
There was one half-time attempt to do so, Wilson Odobert brought on to replace Mathys Tel, who had a thankless first 45 minutes in trying to hold the ball up with his back to goal and only managing it occasionally.
Odobert was meant to bring his brave dribbling to the game to open up AZ's compact lines. He did not.
In fact Spurs' dribbling from their attackers was woeful throughout. Odobert did not beat his man once. Son managed it only once in three attempts and Brennan Johnson just twice in six attempts, with Tel only successful in one of his two dribbles.
It was those further back who had more joy but in areas that could not hurt AZ, with Bergvall, Gray and Danso all bringing the ball forward with more success.
Things needed changing beyond that half-time switch but Postecoglou just watched as it trundled along in a similar pattern.
It was only in the 72nd minute that he brought on Dominic Solanke, Pedro Porro and Pape Matar Sarr and Spurs did look marginally more dangerous with Porro's crosses, Solanke's movement and Sarr recycling the ball quickly helping them.
Solanke may not have been fit enough for any longer than 18 minutes but he didn't even make that as on his return from his knee injury, the striker took a huge whack to the base of his back and upper leg from the AZ goalkeeper Rome-Jayden Owusu-Oduro.
The England international was clearly in extreme amounts of pain and eventually had to be helped by a physio to limp slowly around the pitch and down the tunnel.
When football.london asked what injury Solanke had, Postecoglou replied: "I am not even sure. It looks like a knock but I haven’t really seen it. Hopefully nothing too bad."
Postecoglou needs Solanke because Spurs are toothless without a natural centre forward and they needed aggression on Thursday night.
Cristian Romero could have provided that, but despite having returned to training last week with more sessions under his belt than Solanke and Micky van de Ven, the Argentine and the speedy Dutchman remained on the bench.
You might argue that Spurs needed attacking help rather than defensive reinforcements, but Romero brings something different to Tottenham in both aspects with his forward thinking passes between the lines.
The centre-back spent long periods standing in the dugout in Alkmaar, shouting encouragement to his team-mates. It's difficult to understand how that would not have been more helpful on the pitch. Postecoglou confirmed on Friday that he was worried about the turf seeing off his two returnees in freak fashion, but this was a huge game and it was a crucial decision.
There were other changes that could have come sooner. Dane Scarlett is a natural centre forward but only came on to the pitch late on after Solanke's injury. Mikey Moore was the scourge of AZ in the previous meeting between the two sides, running them ragged down the left-hand side, prompting Maddison to say he thought Neymar was playing.
So surely Moore would have been confident against this opposition again and AZ would have feared him? Yet no, the 17-year-old, despite one moment where it looked like he might come on, remained on the bench.
It was a poor night for Tottenham Hotspur and for Postecoglou. The goal that separates the two teams summed that up. From a corner, Johnson appeared to stop tracking Parrott, who prodded the ball across the Spurs box and Bergvall sliced it up and over his head behind everyone.
It was heading towards the corner of the net but there was still a chance for Vicario to potentially get a hand to it, only for the captain to realise Spence was in his way and the full-back could not reach the ball which fell into the goal. It was a mess.
Vicario later saved from Parrott in a one-vs-one situation and made a couple of close range saves during a scramble in the box towards the end of the first half. The second period brought only a low save from Ernest Poku but with Tottenham doing nothing at the other end, that lack of activity was not capitalised on.
Spurs had seven shots in all, mostly wild and all off target apart from a Wilson Odobert effort that looked more like a cross than a shot and was pushed away by the goalkeeper with an unease that only begged the question of why Spurs didn't attempt to get more shots at him from distance.
Everything about Tottenham was lacklustre in the final third. Since returning from the Dutch winter break, AZ's schedule has been packed with a game every three to four days other than one clear week before their second leg at Galatasaray.
Yet Tottenham with a clearer schedule now looked like the tired team yet again and that's just not good enough.
"I don’t think it’s a matter of effort or attitude. I don’t think it is going out there and not trying, but like I said we didn’t really come to grips and have the right mindset to tackle an away fixture in Europe," said Postecoglou.
"It is always tough and we obviously conceded the goal, which was a disappointing set of events but even after that we didn’t really settle down into the game at all. You are going to face some pressure when you play away from home in Europe and weather the storm and get to grips with it, but we never really did so that was a disappointment."
His captain Son added: "We should be lucky we have another chance next Thursday. It’s a big, big wake up call and everybody should take real care about it. Every opponent you play you have to respect massively because it’s a hard competition and everyone wants to win.
"Everyone can talk about who is favourite, but at the end of the day who wins is the most important thing. We have to respect the others, give huge respect to win the game because winning a game is never guaranteed. We have to earn it and can’t make it comfortable. In the game we have to make some uncomfortable stuff."
There have been too many wake-up calls unheard by Spurs' dozing players and this game felt uncomfortable for Tottenham and Postecoglou.
Bournemouth will arrive on Sunday with their own eight-day break and a high intensity brand of football that Spurs will have to be able to deal with. Then comes the second leg against an AZ side that have shown they can manage a game against Tottenham well, with just one goal scored by Postecoglou's men across two encounters with the Dutch side so far.
"I don't have any doubt about our ability to break them down, but obviously we have to play a little bit differently to how we did tonight, not just with ball but without the ball too," said the Australian.
"We've got to be a lot more aggressive than we were. We were just lacking a bit of aggression in everything we did. We were a little bit hesitant with the ball, hesitant in our pressing and we can't be that way. If we address those things I'm sure we'll be in a position to at least cause them more problems that we did tonight. It's only 1-0 so I guess that’s a positive in that we didn’t let the game get away from us."
It wasn't the most inspiring of ends to Postecoglou's press conference within the AFAS Stadion. After two minutes and 45 seconds or so of questions, even the reporters had nothing more to say because they'd seen it all before and asked it all before.
This kind of performance has been too commonplace in Europe for Spurs this season and occasionally in the Premier League.
Postecoglou's football is all about attacking movement and goals and, as for any system, when those are absent, it's a dreadful watch.
The Tottenham head coach will have lost more of his remaining supporters on Thursday night, with those list of challenges he has faced this season drying up. His critics will say this was another match when his set-up was just too easy to play against if every player is not on song.
This feels like the last chance saloon now. Postecoglou and Spurs need one hell of a week with three tough games in the space of eight days otherwise it's game over for the season and likely the Australian.
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