Ange Postecoglou was full of praise for his Tottenham Hotspur players after their 4-0 win against Manchester City and we've got every single word the Tottenham boss said.
James Maddison opened the scoring on his 28th birthday. Radu Dragusin hit a long ball downfield and Dejan Kulusevksi got it, cut inside and struck a perfect ball into the path of Maddison to volley home with his own left foot. The midfielder doubled his tally on 19 minutes as Spurs won the ball high up the pitch and Maddison and Son Heung-min played a great one-two before the midfielder chipped an effort over the onrushing Ederson.
The visitors made it 3-0 early in the second half. Kulusevski curled a ball across to Dominic Solanke and the striker pulled it back for Pedro Porro to smash into the far corner to send the travelling Tottenham fans wild. Tottenham wrapped up a top performance with a fourth goal when Timo Werner raced down the left flank and pulled the ball across for his fellow substitute Brennan Johnson to slide home.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou in his press conference after the match. Here's every word the Spurs boss said inside the Etihad Stadium.
Could you have imagined coming here and getting a scoreline like that?
Yeah, you don't come to a place like this thinking that it's going to be probably as convincing as it was for us in terms of just the way we handled it. I've said it before, City test you in every football way possible. You've got to do a bit of everything. You've got to defend, you've got to work hard, be disciplined and you've got to play football.
I thought in all four areas we really got to a really strong level today where the players were really determined, after a really disappointing game last time and we just got back to our core beliefs as a team. Credit to the lads. I thought they were just outstanding out there today.
We knew that in the first 10 minutes they'd come out flying, especially with the four losses they've had were away from home. So being at home, there'd be an energy in the stadium.
We were going to have to weather the storm, which I thought we did fairly well and then we just grew into the game and I'm just so pleased for the players, for the belief they have in trying to play the way we want to and then you get a reward like that. I think it just furthers hopefully our progression.
You've got a number of young players who have performed for you tonight, how big is a night like this for their development?
Yeah I guess so. I said during the week, I really think we've progressed as a team. I think we're a better team this year than we were last year, but we've had some real flat spots to say the least that have kind of not allowed us to progress in terms of where we are, in terms of our standing.
But as I said yesterday, I've never sensed from the players that they have lost belief in what we're doing. It's very easy to because obviously there's a lot of noise when things don't go well. But today was about doubling down on our football principles and we did that. It is significant because obviously they've got an unbelievable record here at home.
So I don't think it's something that you can be just sort of blasé about. It is significant, but I think it's significant for the whole group that we've reached these standards before. It's about now not dropping as we have in certain games.
You just mentioned there doubling down on your football principles, it seemed to be today a very defined game plan to hit your wingers, who were brilliant for you, how would you describe it?
Yeah, I thought it was going to be important for us. We knew we were going to have to defend at different times and with Deki and Sonny out there, I thought if we could get the ball to them really early, City are pretty aggressive with their approach. They like to defend almost man on man because they've got outstanding defenders who like to defend the sort of man on man, but I think with Dom there as well, we like that sort of set-up where we can the ball to them earlier.
That's the theory. The practice isn't always that easy because they put pressure on you and I thought our build-up play today, at times we got a little bit stuck, especially in the second half, but we just persisted and persisted in trying to hit those areas that we needed to.
Every time we did it in the second half, we looked really threatening and we obviously scored some good goals from it. For us again, it's development as a team, which is about trying to within the context of our football find solutions that exist, depending on the opponent.
James Madison has had a bit of a lean spell, what have you seen from him behind the scenes, in terms of character and attitude to turn it into a performance like today?
I mean lean spell, I thought he was really good for us earlier in the season and then yeah, he had a couple of sort of flat games but I think the whole team has. I also believe there's more in Madders and, and I think that's on me. I always say, that's my role as a manager.
If I'm not getting a maximum amount out of the players, the team against Ipswich, or individuals, then it's about sort of some self reflection of 'well, ok, can I do something different with them?'. But the thing about Madders was he obviously didn't go away on international duty.
He had two weeks with us and the coaches worked really hard with him and he was working really hard at training and I could just see and said he was ready for a big game. He hasn't sort of lowered his ambitions or his kind of levels of the kind of player he wants to be and it's about us giving him that platform and it wasn't just his goals today.
I thought he was really important for us in the build-up because he was always looking for it in tight areas and, and defensively, he worked really hard. So, yeah, credit to him. Like I said, I still think he's had a decent season, but it's like us as a team, we want to be more than that, we want to be more than just a decent team.
We probably criticised you defensively in Galatasaray with the same two centre-backs, but what can you say about them today and Bissouma in front of them?
Yeah, I thought they were all great. You have to be against City because obviously they've got big Erling up there, but the way they deliver the ball, the areas they consistently probe, you've got to be focused the whole time and I thought Ben and Radu were really focused, I thought Vic behind them was really positive as well with his positioning and the way they communicated. I thought Biss was important to that.
I think the key for us was we had to do it as a collective today. I think when you play City, you can't rely on individuals to find solutions out there and collectively, I thought we defended really well, but credit to those two guys and not just defensively, but we had to play out from the back.
It was the only way we were going to deliver balls to the areas we wanted to and both Ben and Radu didn't shy away from that. It wasn't always easy, but they consistently were looking for the ball and looking for us to play out from the back. So credit to those guys.
