Ange Postecoglou is speaking to the media after Tottenham Hotspur lost 3-2 to Galatasaray in the Europa League on Thursday night.
Spurs were in Turkey in a hostile atmosphere at RAMS Park in Istanbul against a Galatasaray side which included on-loan Napoli striker Victor Osimhen and former Tottenham man Davinson Sanchez. They sit top of the Turkish top flight with an unbeaten record and came into this match fifth in the big Europa League group table.
The visitors had been second in that table after three straight wins and Ange Postecoglou made seven changes to his team from the one that beat Aston Villa 4-1 on Sunday, despite having six players unavailable. Spurs welcome Ipswich Town in the Premier League just two-and-a-half days after they land back in the UK on Friday morning and Postecoglou will need fresh legs.
The hosts took the lead six minutes in thanks to an excellent half-volley from Yunus Akgun from outside the box which flew into the top right corner of Tottenham’s net.
Spurs levelled when 18-year-old Archie Gray picked out Brennan Johnson’s run with a great pass and he cushioned the ball across to 19-year-old Will Lankshear to smash home his first goal for the club on 18 minutes.
Galatasaray found another goal when Radu Dragusin let the ball run across him and it was worked to Osimhen to poke home. The on-loan Napoli striker bagged another goal five minutes before the break when he side-footed a deep cross into the net.
Postecoglou made a couple of half-time changes with Sunday clearly in mind with Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski coming on for Son Heung-min and Brennan Johnson.
Galatasaray continued to heap the pressure on Spurs, who lost Lankshear to a second yellow card before the hour mark for a late challenge. The 10-man visitors did grab a goal back when substitute Dominic Solanke executed a lovely dragged back flick to score from Pedro Porro’s low cross.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold is among those putting the questions to Postecoglou after the match. Scroll down for his latest updates from the press conference at RAMS Park in Istanbul.
More from the Tottenham head coach
Obviously disappointing result. First half wasn’t great, you know, we just didn’t handle things well at all, particularly with the ball, just really wasteful and gave it away way too many times, unnecessarily. That allows them to get a foothold in the areas that they’re good at.
They got some good players in the front third and we just allowed that to happen way too often and ultimately paid a price for it because I thought, you know we always finish strongly and I knew we would in the second half. Obviously going down to 10 men didn’t help, but even with 10 men, I thought we probably played the best football, we did all game and got our second goal, had some opportunities to get a third there, but I thought we were looking the better side. So disappointing outcome, unfortunately, brought on by a disappointing first half.
