Sun. Feb 23rd, 2025
Occasional Digest - a story for you

When Tottenham Hotspur suffered a fourth consecutive Premier League defeat four weeks ago, it was difficult to see anything but a messy end to the season for Ange Postecoglou.

Yet on Saturday his side recorded a third league win in a row with a 4-1 defeat of Ipswich Town at Portman Road – the first time Spurs have achieved the feat since December 2023.

The result not only boosted their aim of securing European football again next season, but showed what they are capable of when not ravaged by injuries.

“We’re certainly in a good space, using these two weeks as well as we could to re-energise the team,” said Postecoglou, whose side are 12th in the table and face a Europa League last-16 tie against AZ Alkmaar.

“I just feel like we’ve got a really good opportunity in these next 10 days to be well equipped for what’s ahead.

“What’s ahead is obviously Europe, but also an opportunity to address our league position, which is obviously not good enough.”

Winning is one thing, but the manner in which Tottenham picked apart Ipswich – and remained resolute at the other end – was impressive.

Brennan Johnson’s two goals came against the run of play but were the result of superb wing play from Son Heung-min, while Djed Spence – with his first top-flight goal – and Dejan Kulusevski’s strikes came when Spurs needed to kill off the game.

“I thought we did the hard things really well,” added Postecoglou. “A couple of times in the first half we lost a bit of concentration in terms of the second ball and duels, disappointing goal we conceded, but aside from that I thought we handled that side of the game really well.

“I always felt we were a threat when we had the ball. Sonny [Son Heung-min] was unplayable in the first half and so good to get Brennan back in those areas where he’s always a threat.

“All four of our goals were quality goals. We had to do the hard things, but the fruits of that labour was that our front third play was super exciting and clinical.”

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