Ange Postecoglou insists he is looking at the ‘broader picture’ after Tottenham’s hopes of a top-four finish were dented by a North London derby defeat to Arsenal.
Spurs missed the chance to close the gap to Aston Villa in the Champions League places after a 3-2 defeat at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with Postecoglou’s side enduring a nightmare first half to trail 3-0 at the interval.
Vulnerability at set-pieces undid Spurs in the opening 45 minutes. The opener arrived when Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg headed into his own goal from a Bukayo Saka set-piece, before Arsenal’s third came from another dead-ball delivery, with Kai Havertz heading home.
Spurs had their moments in the first half, with Micky van de Ven having a goal disallowed for offside and Cristian Romero hitting the post, but Arsenal took their chances in ruthless fashion.
Spurs improved after the break and Romero pulled a goal back after David Raya’s miscued clearance, before Son Heung-min set up a tense finish with a second from the penalty spot.
Ben Davies went down under contact from Declan Rice and Son emphatically dispatched the spot-kick to make it 3-2 with three minutes of normal time to play.
Postecoglou discussed the goals his team conceded and admitted Spurs were ‘very poor’ from defensive set-pieces, though insisted it is the ‘broader picture’ he must assess when looking to improve.
“Yeah, no because it’s understanding where you are as a football team. If I thought fixing defensive set pieces was the answer to us bridging the gap then I’d put all of my time and effort into that,” Postecoglou said at his post-match press conference.
“But that’s not where we’re at. For us it’s about, when I was focused on the details of, not just set pieces but a lot of moments in games where we don’t sense that you give good opposition the time and the space to do things then they’re going to hurt you.
“I think they maybe had four attempts on goal in the first half and they conceded three. I don’t think it’s about one part of it, I think it’s a bigger, broader picture than that, but our defensive set pieces for those two were very poor. But there’s a lot more than that to fix.”
