Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou has accepted a slice of the blame for the goals that his side conceded in their friendly defeat to West Ham United on Tuesday.
The Australian's Spurs reign kicked off with a 3-2 loss to the Europa Conference League winners in Perth, where Tottenham were made to pay for aerial deficiencies in the first half.
Danny Ings and Divin Mubama both headed home inside the opening 25 minutes after early Spurs dominance, but after making a full 11 changes at the break, Postecoglou witnessed his side restore parity through Giovani Lo Celso and Destiny Udogie.
However, with 12 minutes left to play, Pablo Fornals sliced the high Tottenham defensive line open with a through ball to Gianluca Scamacca, whose calm finish ended up proving decisive.
Speaking to the press after the defeat, Postecoglou admitted that some of the responsibility for the defeat was on him, as he is yet to work on defending set-pieces with his new crop of players.
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"The goals we conceded are partly on me - we haven't done loads of work on those kind of defensive areas and structures around set-pieces and stuff. I can't expect the guys to take everything on board," football.london quotes Postecoglou as saying.
"I thought for the most part defensively the pressure was really good and we didn't allow too many chances as you said. But we don't want to be conceding goals with them producing a small number of chances. But that's not the sort of stuff worked on.
"There are still things in our structure where we could have moved the ball quicker and guys aren't in exactly the position they need to be. And there are a few things we need to keep developing, as is only natural as they get fitter to play this kind of football. We're still in the early stages."
Despite coming out on the wrong end of the scoreline, Tottenham created numerous chances at Optus Stadium but were let down by woeful finishing, recording 30 shots compared to just four for West Ham.
Nevertheless, the attack-minded Postecoglou was pleased to see his side show a "willingness" to adopt his methods, and he also praised the four debutants in Udogie, James Maddison, Guglielmo Vicario and Manor Solomon, the latter of whom looked particularly bright.
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"We've obviously been working really hard in training and I didn't expect the lads to be super sharp because this is the stage where you're getting your conditioning but we have been working on stuff," Postecoglou added.
"We want to see some of that out there and I think in both halves there was a real willingness from the boys to try to put in place the stuff we've been working on. At times it looked good but we're still very much in the infancy of trying to establish the way we want to play and our structures. For me the key thing is are they trying out there to implement it and for the most part it was really good."
When asked about the performances of Spurs' summer signings, Postecoglou added: "Yeah I thought Manor, Destiny, Vic and Madders, they all adapted well. But to be fair it's like I'm working with 30 new signings because they're all kind of new to me. I've just arrived at Tottenham, they've been here for a while but they're doing things a bit different.
"I'm obviously looking at things from a collective perspective but they (the new signings) have been showing good stuff in training in terms of we identified them because we thought they had traits that we thought would complement our football."
Next up for Tottenham is a clash with Championship side Leicester City in Thailand on Sunday before the Lilywhites head to Singapore to square off with Lion City Sailors on July 26.
Ben Knapton
