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Ange Postecoglou was booed with rage Tottenham fans as the manager confronted the away side after losing to Bournemouth 1-0 in Premier League.
Tottenham were outplayed at the Vitality Stadium and dropped to 10th in the table – with a 4-0 win against Manchester City, their only win in their last six games in all competitions.
Postecoglou went to applaud the away team at full-time but was then involved in an exchange with Spurs fans. The Australian nodded and pointed to his chest, as if to say “me?” before giving a thumbs up. Postecoglou said he had received some “pretty direct feedback”, which he said could not be repeated, but added that he did not like what he heard.
Asked what happened at full-time, the manager said: “I didn’t talk. They were disappointed and rightly so. I’ve had pretty direct feedback on how we’re going and it’s fair enough.”
He continued: “I have no problem with that. I didn’t like what was said because I’m human, but you have to understand it. I’ve been around long enough to know that if things don’t go well, you have to understand the frustration and disappointment. They are right to be disappointed tonight because we let the game of football slip away from us again. It’s okay, I’m okay with all of that.”
Tottenham play Chelsea on Sunday and will also play Manchester United in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals and host Premier League leaders Liverpool before Christmas. Spurs have been hampered by injuries, particularly in defence, with Postecoglou also losing Ben Davies to a hamstring injury during the defeat at Bournemouth.
Spurs conceded another set-piece goal as Dean Huijsen was left unmarked at the back post to score the game’s only goal. Bournemouth had plenty of chances to extend their lead as Postecoglou criticized his team for continuing to “make things difficult for themselves” and “shooting themselves in the foot”.
“It’s not good enough,” Postecoglou said. “We fell into the trap again that we started the game really well, we were in control, and then we conceded a really bad goal.
“Then we lost our way a bit and allowed Bournemouth to play the game they wanted. We had our moments in the second half, but we couldn’t score.
“I don’t know if they had more urgency, but we have that kind of tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot when we need to control games. It’s hard to beat them here and what you don’t have to do is give them a goal that gives them the momentum that they is needed.
“We started to play with a little more conviction at the beginning of the second half and created some good chances. Again we made things difficult for ourselves by allowing opponents to take the game in the direction they wanted.
“It’s all big games ahead of us. We have to get out of the space we’re in at the moment where we can’t really get to grips with the season.”
Of Davies’ injury, which could leave Tottenham with one fit centre-back for the trip to Chelsea, Postecoglou said: “It looks like he’s got his hamstring sorted. He and Radu [Dragusin] played every game. That’s one position we can’t rotate. It’s obviously going to be out for a while, we’ll just have to wait and see how long it lasts. That’s a consequence of having the team we have at the moment.”