Ange Postecoglou was quizzed at his press conference following Tottenham's 4-2 defeat against Wolves in the Premier League on Sunday and we've got every word the Australian said.
Wolves took the lead at Molineux just over a minute into the game after Guglielmo Vicario weakly punched a free-kick out to Rayan Ait-Nouri, who had all the time in the world to bounce a volley back past the Italian. Spurs conceded another calamity goal before the break when a deflected bouncing ball into the box was headed on by Marshall Munetsi and Vicario flapped at the ball and pushed it against Djed Spence and it bounced into the net off the left-back.
Mathys Tel grabbed a fortunate goal back 15 minutes into the second half. Substitute Lucas Bergvall drove up the pitch, played Brennan Johnson down the right and his cross bounced into the net off the Frenchman after Nelson Semedo messed up his clearance in front of him.
Calamity goal number three soon arrived though. Cristian Romero had the ball at his feet but instead presented it to Ait-Nouri who ran into the box and squared it for Jorgen Strand Larsen to score.
Richarlison came off the bench to get another goal back when Ben Davies headed Bergvall's corner across and Romero nodded it towards goal where Sa tipped it on to the crossbar and the Brazilian headed in the loose ball. However, straight away calamity goal number four came along when Bergvall was dispossessed by Matheus Cunha who ran towards the Spurs goal to score.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou after the match and you can find the full transcript from the press conference at Molineux below.
How do you sum up your feelings after that game?
Obviously a disappointing result. Funny game because for the most part I thought our football was decent considering all the changes we've made. For the most part we controlled large parts of it, were a threat going forward and didn't give them too much. But then obviously we conceded some pretty poor goals and that made it awfully difficult to get an outcome today.
Do you have full confidence that Guglielmo Vicario will be OK for Thursday?
Yeah, 100 per cent confidence. Obviously we made some individual errors today which was a bit unusual for us, fair to say. They all happened in one game and unfortunately we got punished from it.
It wasn't ideal that the errors were all from key players though?
Yeah but it's not like they're doing it on purpose. Those two in particular are pretty reliable in those kind of situations but today it was a collection of events which were unusual which makes it really difficult to get an outcome from the game.
Could Dejan Kulusevski start in Germany?
We'll see. It was good for Deki, Richarlison and Matty Tel to get minutes. That will be important Thursday night for sure. Especially those three it was really good to get decent minutes in them and they all felt really good.
There's a theme of conceding soft goals early, how difficult is that for the team to keep bouncing back from?
It was a bit different today. The goals we conceded weren't lapses, they were just individual errors which, like I said, is unusual for us to give goals away like that. But that's what happened, we got punished today and it makes it very difficult to get an outcome.
Were minds on Thursday? Is that an acceptable excuse?
I don't think so. When you look at those things in isolation, they're just things that are unusual for us and for those players in those moments. It happens. It might happen once in a game or a season, and for us it happened multiple times in a game. I don't think it's any lack of focus from the players and from my perspective, I don't think that's a major concern.
You're going to another away ground on Thursday, a noisy atmosphere, how do you get them out of the headspace they'll be in from today?
Well, they shouldn't be in a bad headspace, and I think, you know, the game Thursday is massive for us. I thought we played well on Thursday night against them and probably should have got a win out of that game. We know that when we play our football like we did on Thursday night, we can certainly make an impact.
So we just recover today, physically, mentally, make sure that the players are in a good space. We rested a few today which I think will help us come Thursday as well.
Son and Odobert will fine for Thursday then?
They should be, yeah, yeah, Sonny got a knock and no point in him traveling today and with Wilson, as I said before, I was just managing him, but the whole idea was hopefully managing him so he can be right for Thursday night.
Only Leicester and Southampton have lost more games away from home, what is it about the away form?
There's various reasons for it, but today there's a specific reason for it, we made errors that conceded goals, so that's all you can analyse and that's what happened today.
Do you have any update on what you were talking about on Friday, the supposed leaking of information?
Well, it's not a supposed leak. There is a leak and I mentioned it, people are looking at it, but now that's not really, it's not my sort of priority right now in the next four days. The next four days we are making sure we're ready for Thursday night.
How frustrated were you that the defensive mistakes happened just when you were coming back into the game, they followed your goals?
Like I said, it's not like the players are doing it on purpose, so you have an understanding that that's the unfortunate things that sometimes happen in a game of football. Probably be more frustrated if it was something that we did from a tactical perspective or organisational perspective, but they're individual errors, you know, the players don't mean to do it and, especially Lucas and Romero, I mean they're two fantastic footballers and what's important now for both of them is that they recover and we focus on the next game.
I know it's easy to say in hindsight, but six changes, do you now feel that you did the right thing in doing that?
You always try and do the right thing and I guess for us, what's important is that, like I said, we got some game time with some players, we rested a few and hopefully that makes us in a sort of good shape for Thursday night.
James Maddison has started four games in a row, I don't think he's done that this season before, is he in a good place fitness-wise, or do you just need his creativity?
No, I think he's in a good place and I think Madders when he plays regularly he feels stronger, so from our perspective having him in really good condition, physically is important because I think that's when he plays his best football. The Thursday to Sunday is always a tough turnaround but I thought he was one of the ones that would be able to cope with it okay. Obviously now with Sunday to Thursday it gives us an extra day to recover and he'll be fine.
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