Postecoglou laments Spurs’ approach in defeat to Palace: ‘We need to be a lot more clear headed’ | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou has called upon Tottenham to become more streetwise after being dragged into a dogfight against struggling Crystal Palace – which they eventually succumbed to.

Jean-Philippe Mateta’s strike on the half-hour mark handed Palace a first win of the season, while Spurs’ inconsistency continues to plague them.

Postecoglou bemoaned his Spurs players for channelling their frustration in the wrong manner which contributed to their downfall.

“What I want to try to do is get people to adjust to playing our game,” he spoke post match.

“Some of it is out of control because they’re obviously going to be pretty aggressive in their approach, which is not a surprise.

“And how the referee deals with that, not so much in terms of the challenges but in terms of stoppages and taking their time, all of that is out of our control.

“But I just felt when we had control of things, we could have dealt with it better. We ended up doing silly things, giving away silly fouls and losing our composure, which just adds to that sort of game when you can’t get any traction.

“So I think we directed our frustration in the wrong way rather than dealing with like we should have.”

The defeat leaves Tottenham in eighth, with four wins and four defeats from their opening nine games.

Postecoglou wants his players to be more ‘clear-minded’ in their approach to physical battles, rather than allowing opponents to dictate the course of games.

“It was a game we needed to stay composed and not sort of fall into the trap of trying to play the game ultimately Palace wanted to play,” he added. 

“It turned into a game that was battle after battle, duels, stop starts, waiting around.

“We need to be a lot more clear-headed about how we deal with that rather than fall into the trap of doing what we did today.”