Ange Postecoglou warns of Tottenham ‘missteps’ after defeat as he delivers message that will sound familiar to Celtic fans

Ange Postecoglou reckons there will be ‘missteps’ from Tottenham as he implements his style, but that the goals they concede are on him after going down 3-2 to West Ham United in Australia.

The former Celtic manager is back in his homeland as he prepares his Spurs side for the season ahead but suffered defeat in their first outing to rivals West Ham in a pre-season friendly. The North London outfit found themselves two goals down inside 23 minutes despite fielding a strong XI that included hitman Harry Kane and new signing James Maddison. Spurs fought back to level the game before David Moyes’ men took the lead with just over ten minutes to play through Gianluca Scamacca. It means Postecoglou is yet to register a win in pre-season.

And while his counterpart Moyes spoke of the “enormous” pressure Postecoglou faced with Celtic when quizzed on the task at hand at Spurs, the pair have been exchanging kind words in recent weeks. But the Aussie isn’t going to be unnerved by the stalled start, and reckons it will take more than a few weeks, and a few bumps in the road yet, before his masterplan can be executed. Postecoglou also lost to the Hammers in pre-season before his Celtic charge, but by a more significant scoreline of 6-2 at Celtic Park.

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He said: “I’m talking about the intent [to play his way]. I’m trying to provide the security and structure for my players to play that kind of football. There will be missteps along the way but we’ve got to be all in. They were trying to do that but at times it wasn’t working because they weren’t sure yet what positions to be in but that’s what we can show them and work on.

“The goals we conceded are partly on me – we haven’t done loads of work on those kind of defensive areas and structures around set-pieces and stuff. I can’t expect the guys to take everything on board. I thought for the most part defensively the pressure was really good and we didn’t allow too many chances as you said. But we don’t want to be conceding goals with them producing a small number of chances.

“But that’s not the sort of stuff worked on. There are still things in our structure where we could have moved the ball quicker and guys aren’t in exactly the position they need to be. And there are a few things we need to keep developing, as is only natural as they get fitter to play this kind of football. We’re still in the early stages. At the same time we only have three or so weeks to get ready for the first game so we’re working hard.”