Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou has conceded that his side were punished for being "too passive" in their 1-0 FA Cup loss to Manchester City on Friday evening.
The Lilywhites welcomed the holders to North London having won all five of their previous fixtures against them at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, where Man City were yet to score a single goal before the fourth-round tie.
However, Pep Guardiola's men broke that curse in the dying embers of Friday's fixture, where Nathan Ake was on hand to poke home from close range after a Kevin De Bruyne corner caused chaos in the Tottenham area.
Prior to Ake's match-winning moment, neither goalkeeper was tested to the extreme during a monotone affair, in which Tottenham had just one shot throughout the match and failed to register an attempt on goal in the first half of a home game for the first time since February 2020.
On that day, the Lilywhites ran out 2-0 winners over Man City, but they were arguably fortunate not to lose by more on Friday, where Oscar Bobb had an early goal ruled out for the tightest of offsides, while Bernardo Silva and De Bruyne also spurned two gilt-edged chances in quick succession before Ake's winner.
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Tottenham's fourth-round elimination means that the Lilywhites only have Premier League glory left to fight for this season, and they will be condemned to a 16th successive trophyless season should they fail to end Man City's reign of top-flight dominance.
Speaking to the media after the game, as quoted by football.london, Postecoglou was able to take the positives from his side's second-half display but bemoaned their lack of killer instinct in the first 45 minutes.
"They're a top team. They're the benchmark. We're not there yet and we're under no illusion about that," Postecoglou said. "I just felt that all of the second half was ok, the first half we were just too passive in a lot of our play and allowed them to get a rhythm in their game.
"It's not what you want against them. It's very hard to arrest that mid-game. I thought we started the second half better with a bit more conviction about our play but ultimately we were just working hard to stay in the game and that wasn't going to be enough tonight."
Ake's goal was clouded in a familiar sense of controversy, though, as Spurs felt that Guglielmo Vicario had been fouled by Ruben Dias while trying to gather De Bruyne's corner; the Italian could only palm the ball into Ake's path under pressure from the Portuguese.
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City's duck-breaking goal was allowed to stand, though, and Postecoglou refused to open a new can of worms regarding the decision after the game, adding: "Well, the referee has had a good look at it and VAR has had a good look at it and they've decided otherwise so we have accept that."
One welcome sight from Friday's defeat was the return of playmaker James Maddison from the ankle injury which had sidelined him since early November, as the summer signing came on with 17 minutes left to play.
Postecoglou said in his pre-game press conference that Maddison would be "available to start" after returning to training, but he confessed after the match that the decision to put the midfielder on the bench was not a complicated one.
"I think knowing the nature of the game today, he's trained well this week and a half but he's missed a lot of football. We were hoping to get him some minutes tonight which he did and he should be right to go from now on, but there's another two games next week and we need him and others to pitch in," the Australian added.
"It wasn't really much of a dilemma about whether to start him or not. I just felt that just coming off the bench was going to be better for us as a team more than anything else."
Tottenham will endeavour to bounce back from their latest knockout disappointment when they host Brentford in a Premier League London derby on Wednesday evening.
Ben Knapton
