Ange Postecoglou believes Tottenham lacked ‘cutting edge’ during the club’s entertaining 2-2 draw with Brentford.
Spurs opened the Premier League season with a London derby draw at Brentford on Sunday, in the north London club’s first fixture since Harry Kane’s sale to Bayern Munich.
Cristian Romero headed Spurs into an early lead from James Maddison’s free-kick, before the defender was immediately substituted after sustaining a head injury.
Brentford hit back and turned the game around, with Bryan Mbuemo equalising from the penalty spot before Yoanne Wissa put the Bees ahead.
Emerson Royal levelled the game once more in first-half stoppage time with a fine strike and neither team could find a breakthrough after the break. Postecoglou reflected on his first game in charge of Spurs at full-time and said he was pleased with the effort from his players.
“Considering the events of the day I thought we handled ourselves pretty well. In terms of effort I couldn’t ask any more,” the Australian told BBC Match of the Day.
“We got a great start to the game and then had to take Romero off. I thought we reacted well to that. But conceding the two goals, it would be easy to drop out heads but I don’t think we did that. We worked our way back in, scored and controlled the second half for the most part. We could maybe have been more creative in the final third to create some more opportunities.”
Postecoglou praised the performance of Yves Bissouma in midfield for his side, but believes Spurs lacked cutting edge in the absence of Kane. The club’s all-time record goalscorer joined Bayern Munich in a deal worth an initial €100m this week, with Richarlison struggling to make an impact as his replacement in a central role at Brentford.
“Bissouma has been outstanding through pre-season and was superb today. We had a lot of the ball and it was important we kept things ticking over. Our progression of the ball was really good, we just lacked a cutting edge. It is the stage we are at. We are trying to change the way the team plays and they are taking on a lot of information.
“It is either an impediment to you or an opportunity,” Postecoglou said on Kane’s exit.
“Harry Kane was massive figure for this club for a long time and will continue to be whether he is in the building or not. We wanted to go out and give our supporters some hope and belief in the team. I thought they did that today.”
