It was an historic day for Australian football with Ange Postecoglou taking charge of Tottenham for the first time in a Premier League match. TIM MORGAN was in Brentford to gauge the mood of Spurs fans.
In the final few hours before the Ange Postecoglou era kicked-off at Brentford the buzz among the Tottenham fans who had made the trip to West London was inescapable.
Sure, supporters had lost a club legend and star striker in Harry Kane to Bayern Munich mere days before the game, but even that couldn’t extinguish the enthusiasm supporters were feeling ahead of their Aussie manager’s Premier League debut.
Expectations widely vary within the Spurs faithful about where their club could finish this season, especially after the departure of Kane, but the consistent theme between everyone who arrived at the Gtech Community Stadium on Sunday afternoon was that they were looking forward to a new and exciting style of play under Postecoglou than what they got with Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo or Antonio Conte.
So, when the moment arrived for Postecoglou to take his position in a Premier League technical area for the first time, he did so with a warm reception from those in the away section, which he made sure to acknowledge with his own round of applause.
Then came the moment that the English summer had been building towards, where pre-season optimism makes way and is replaced by the performances on the pitch and in this regard those in blue and white got a lot of what they were hoping for.
Right from the start Spurs were looking to maintain possession and play out from the back, and understandably from a team still trying to bed down a new game style it led to some nervous moments.
But after surviving some scares under pressure it would be Tottenham who would strike first. New recruit James Maddison who was brilliant all day in Kane’s old number 10, won a free kick on the edge of the area. His ensuing cross found a teammates head and Spurs were on the board. For those wondering where the goals will come from without Kane, the surprising early answer was Christian Romero.
Romero’s celebrations were short lived however, the Argentine furious to immediately be pulled from the field due to a concussion concern.
The London derby drama only intensified from there, Heung-min Son’s first impact as captain was in his own penalty box after VAR intervention led to a penalty being awarded for the Korean’s slight contact with Mathias Jensen. With the suspended Ivan Toney unavailable to step-in as he usually would, it was left to Bryan Mbeumo to convert from the spot and level proceedings at 1-1.
Spurs’ defensive frailties were beginning to show as the half went on, the speed of Rico Henry and Yoane Wissa was proving a handful and in the 36th minute the pair combined for the Bees second. Henry got in behind Emerson Royal to set up Wissa whose strike found the back of the net thanks to a heavy deflection from debutant Mickey van de Ven.
Emerson would make up for it before the break, Maddison’s second assist found the defender on the outside of the box where he fired the ball into the bottom left-hand corner and the game was level again at 2-2.
Minutes later the half-time whistle blew. After a pre-game delay due to a sanitation issue at the venue and then 11 minutes of additional time it was already more than hour past the scheduled kick-off, but it had felt like the time had absolutely flown by.
The second half started in a far more controlled fashion for the visitors. For the first 10 minutes Spurs had 81% possession, that number would be 66% by the time the final whistle went but there wouldn’t be another goal to show for it.
That was Postecoglou’s biggest frustration when his first game in charge came to a close, that his team wasn’t able to “create as much as they could have.”
“Obviously we had a lot of the ball today, we had a lot of territory – I thought we could have been a little bit more creative in that front third,” Postecoglou told Optus Sport.
“A lot of that is obviously we’ve changed the way we play, the kind of team we’re going to be and the players at the moment are taking in a lot of information and a lot of that front third stuff requires a little bit of freedom for them.”
“It is a team in transition. We’ve changed quite a lot of things, not just the way we play but also the personnel and it will take time for them to gel.”
Teething pains could explain why two of Postecoglou’s biggest attacking threats, Richarlison and Son struggled to have an impact on the game with the latter surprisingly substituted with 15 minutes left to go, prompting match commentator Matt Holland to declare it an early sign that Postecoglou is not afraid to make a big call.
Still, a draw at Brentford is something for Postecoglou and his team to feel positive about. In their two seasons in the Premier League the Bees have opened their campaign at home with a 2-nil win over Arsenal and a 4-nil triumph over Manchester United, so this was a tough first up assignment for the Socceroos boss and one that certainly hasn’t lost him any of his many admirers.
