Ange Postecoglou has said that he is not interested in Tottenham Hotspur’s dreadful record at set pieces this season and insists solving the problem is not a priority for him.
After losing at home to Woolwich on Sunday, Tottenham face Chelsea on Thursday, knowing another defeat would all but end their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League and leave their season in danger of petering out.
Since thrashing Aston Villa 4-0 last month, Spurs have won only twice in six games, at home to Luton Town and Nottingham Forest. They have been blown away by Fulham, hammered by Newcastle United and outfoxed by Woolwich in the north London derby.
Two goals conceded from corners against Woolwich means Spurs now have the fifth-worst record in the Premier League at defending set pieces, but Postecoglou insists that fragility is not a concern.
“Not in the least,” Postecoglou said. “I get it. It’s not an answer [people want]. To quote Billy Joel, ‘You may be right, I may be crazy, but it’s maybe a lunatic you’re looking for.’
“I’m just not interested in it. I never have been. Enough of you [journalists] have done enough research on me to know this is not the first time I’ve been questioned about set pieces in my coaching career. There is an underlying reason for that which I’m very, very comfortable with. Eventually I will create a team that has success and it won’t be because of working on set pieces.”
Postecoglou may have been referring to his time at Celtic, when set pieces were the Achilles’ heel of a dominant side in his first season before becoming a potent weapon in his second, aided by signings and the work of his assistant, Gavin Strachan, who was not allowed to follow Postecoglou south last summer.
Instead, Ryan Mason and Mile Jedinak have been put in charge of set-piece preparation at Spurs and perhaps Postecoglou wants to avoid publicly undermining his two young coaches, whose contributions he values greatly.
But his dismissal of Tottenham’s set-piece problem jars at a time when other teams, Woolwich included, have benefited hugely from hiring a specialist coach in that area.
Woolwich, who brought in Manchester City’s set-piece guru Nicolas Jover in 2021, sit top for set-piece goals scored in the top flight this season and second only to City for goals conceded. Ben White’s fiddling with Guglielmo Vicario’s goalkeeping gloves on Sunday was the kind of tactic Jover even encourages — but Postecoglou was unimpressed.
“I don’t take a lot of interest in that stuff, never have. I’m not casting judgment, but I just don’t really care,” he said. “Seriously, we’re not in the schoolyard. It’s never been where my focus lies. To be honest, if I saw one of my players do it I’d be saying, ‘Mate, seriously? Get the ball and play some football.’ That doesn’t mean it’s not a strategy that can’t be used, but I just don’t care about it. Makes no impact on me.”
Postecoglou’s scepticism may find a sympathetic ear in the opposite dugout on Thursday after Mauricio Pochettino gave short shrift to the idea of a set-piece coach joining him at Chelsea. Pochettino said in February that “football belongs to the players, not the specialists”, although Chelsea have since agreed a deal to sign Brentford’s set-piece coach, Bernardo Cueva, this summer.
“It’s something that we work on along with everything in our game,” Postecoglou said. “There are far more important things that we need to concentrate on at the moment in terms of the team we’re building. People want to believe, and it can be, that football is very prescriptive. You’ve got an illness, here’s the tablet and you feel better. I’ve never believed that. I’ve always been about trying to create an environment and a style of football that can win things.”
Despite their stuttering form, Tottenham have collected six more points, scored seven more goals and conceded one goal fewer than at the same stage last season, all in their first year without Harry Kane. But Spurs have never matched the heights of Postecoglou’s first few months, when they were unbeaten at the top of the table after ten games, before facing Chelsea at home on November 6. “I said after that game that while people were focusing on the way we went about it, I knew it was going to be a pivotal day,” Postecoglou said.
Spurs took an early lead through Dejan Kulusevski but unravelled as Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie were both sent off before the hour mark. Chelsea poured through Tottenham’s incredibly high defensive line to win 4-1, while Micky van de Ven and James Maddison both suffered hamstring injuries, which kept each of them out until January. Spurs lost four of their next five matches and have never fully recovered.
“I knew we’d lost Madders and Micky van de Ven for a big spell, I knew we’d lost Cristian [Romero] for a chunk. I think at that stage we’d already lost [Ivan] Perisic and [Manor] Solomon [to injury] and I’m going, ‘OK, this will be a real test for us from now,’ ” Postecoglou said.
“I expected something to happen because it was never going to run as smoothly as it had. It’s a credit to the players that we got off to such a great start but I knew after that game that we would be really, really challenged in terms of the squad we had at the time.
“The manner in which we played maybe gave people a small insight into what we’re trying to create here and the way we’re going about it and how we deal with challenges. We’re still trying to do it the same way. We haven’t always succeeded but all the pain we’re going through this year is going to hold us in good stead.”
Tottenham will be without Ben Davies and Timo Werner for the rest of the season after they both picked up injuries against Woolwich. Davies’s absence leaves Postecoglou short at left back, with Udogie already out, meaning Emerson Royal may have to fill in on his weaker side for the final five games.
Werner’s injury means he has played the last game of his six-month loan deal, with Spurs set to decide whether to take up the option to sign him permanently for £15million from RB Leipzig in the summer. Werner has contributed two goals and three assists in 13 league appearances this season.
“It’s not about the here and now, it’s about the overall strategy,” Postecoglou said. “Timo coming in was very helpful for us and I think he’s made an impact but in my mind, to make those definitive decisions, I still need some clarity about what we’ve got here first.”
www.thetimes.co.uk
Vs 
Flangewhataknights
, get ready for some press conference Angegold!
