Postecoglou left with egg on his face as Tottenham stars lose faith

Ange Postecoglou grew to become the primary Tottenham supervisor to lose every of his first 4 assembly with Chelsea within the league and clashed with the Spurs travelling followers on a depressing night time for the Australian at Stamford Bridge.

Enzo Fernandez’s header shortly after the interval earned the Blues a deserved 1-0 win and condemned Spurs to a sixteenth defeat in 30 league video games this season.

Moises Caicedo had an excellent volley to make it 2-0 disallowed by the VAR for offside earlier than Spurs had a purpose of their very own dominated out, resulting in the flashpoint between Postecoglou and the away finish.

Listed here are three Spurs speaking factors from the match…

This felt just like the night time when Postecoglou’s relationship with Spurs followers soured.

Postecoglou has clashed with people and small teams of supporters greater than as soon as this season, notably after the 1-0 defeat at Bournemouth in December, however at Stamford Bridge, tensions between the top coach and travelling followers escalated.

Postecoglou’s determination to switch Lucas Bergvall with Pape Matar Sarr within the sixty fourth minute – in a double change which additionally noticed Wilson Odobert hooked for Brennan Johnson – was met with widespread chants of “you don’t know what you’re doing” from the away finish.

However inside six minutes of his introduction, Sarr thought he had levelled the sport with a fierce 30-yard strike which crept by means of Robert Sanchez within the Chelsea purpose.

A defiant Postecoglou turned and cupped his ear within the route of the away supporters.

There was, although, a twist. Sarr had received the ball from Caicedo with a excessive problem on the Ecuadorian’s knee and the VAR suggested referee Craig Pawson to evaluate the choice at his pitch-side monitor.

Pawson disallowed the purpose and booked Sarr – to the frustration of each Postecoglou and Enzo Maresca, who plainly wished the Spurs midfielder despatched off.

Postecoglou was left with egg on his face, and it was placing that at full-time, he didn’t go over to acknowledge the away finish, as an alternative hovering across the centre of the pitch and sometimes acknowledging his gamers as they walked previous.

For a lot of the membership’s tough season, together with the opening phases of the second half at Chelsea, Spurs followers have vocally and vociferously made it clear that they maintain Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman, in charge for the membership’s struggles.

Against this, they’ve largely remained impartial on Postecoglou throughout video games – neither chanting his identify, nor calling for his head – however you marvel if that may begin to change after this grim night in west London.

And it isn’t simply the followers who look like dropping religion in Postecoglou.

For almost all of their dreadful winter, Spurs regarded like a aspect wanting match gamers however nonetheless dedicated to what they had been being requested to do by the supervisor.

As they lurched from one poor consequence to the following, usually with barely sufficient senior gamers to make up an XI, Spurs stored attempting to play Ange-ball.

Now, although, the alternative is more and more true.

Postecoglou has a largely match squad – and he was capable of identify his strongest XI at Stamford Bridge, apart from Dejan Kulusevski – however Spurs are enjoying like a staff utterly shorn of conviction of their supervisor’s soccer.

For the primary 70 minutes at Chelsea, they had been abject in one other dismal show which flew within the face of the suggestion that they’d solely enhance as soon as their injured gamers returned.

They loved the occasional flash of promise towards Chelsea however solely when a person – normally Bergvall, James Maddison or Heung-min Son – produced a second of high quality.

They largely resembled 11 people – with no game-plan, cohesion or construction.

It was really easy for Chelsea to play by means of Postecoglou’s flimsy aspect, with normally one go sufficient for the hosts to be working at Spurs’ again line.

If Jadon Sancho, who pressured an excellent save from Guglielmo Vicario in direction of the top of the primary half, had been keen to shoot sooner, Chelsea would certainly have been out of sight by the break.

It was to Spurs’ credit score that they rallied within the closing 20 minutes, with Son going near an equaliser by forcing a sprawling however snug save from Sanchez.

Chelsea ought to have already got had the sport wrapped up by that time, nevertheless, and Spurs’ late push was arguably right down to the Blues’ personal frailties and lack of conviction, as a lot as any actual sense of goal.

On the one hand, Postecoglou can thank his fortunate stars that subsequent up for Spurs is a house sport towards rock-bottom Southampton on Sunday.

Spurs ought to have sufficient to see off Saints, even with a rotated aspect, however on the flip aspect, the fixture looks like a lose-lose for the supervisor.

Thrashing such a sorry opponent shouldn’t be going to vary a lot when it comes to temper or momentum and there’s a real risk {that a} low-confidence Spurs might slip up – having already misplaced at residence to Leicester and Ipswich this season.

In the end, what issues for Postecoglou and Spurs, although, is their Europa League quarter-final tie towards Eintracht Frankfurt, with the primary leg at residence subsequent Thursday, which might nonetheless dramatically change the outlook of their season.

It’s, although, getting more durable and more durable to think about a constructive end result for Postecoglou’s aspect towards the Germans, given the way in which their season is plummeting.