Your team had 30 shots on target to West Ham’s four, did we start to see some of your football there?
Yes I think so. From my perspective, that’s what we were looking for tonight. We’ve obviously been working really hard in training and I didn’t expect the boys to be super sharp because that’s the stage where you get your conditioning, but we’ve been working on things.
We want to see some of that out there and I think in both halves there was a real willingness from the lads to try and put the things we’ve been working on in place. At times it looked good, but we are still very much in the early days of trying to establish the way we want to play and our structures.
For me, the most important thing is that they try to implement it, and for the most part it was really good.
When it comes to that sharpness, did both of your centre-forwards, Harry and Richarlison, still struggle in that regard?
Potentially, but again, if we keep creating those kinds of chances, I’ve no doubt they’ll finish them off. They are both quality strikers. For me, results become secondary right now. How we play our football, what pace we play at, our structures are much more important than the results.
Of course there were some positives, not all positives, but certainly enough to say at least from my perspective that the boys are willing, trying to change the way we play.
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Son and Ndombele missed out tonight, are they ok?
Tanguy took a hit in training yesterday on his ankle. Nothing serious, it kept him out today. Sonny has only done two sessions since joining us. We made the decision not to use him tonight.
He worked hard in training today, him and Eric Dier, Djed Spence and Joe Rodon. These are guys who came late and hopefully they’ll be ready to play a role in the next two games.
What did you say at halftime to get the team going because there was a noticeable difference?
No credit for that because they were outside warming up when I talked to the guys who had played. I think the guys that came on in the second half did really well. We’ve been working with the whole group so it’s just about trying to get as many minutes into the guys.
We have 45 minutes today and we will look in the next two games to stretch it to 60-70 minutes for as much of the group as possible and then try to use the last two games to get 90 minutes.
In both halves there were good things and some things we need to work on.
Were you satisfied with the new contracts?
Yeah, I thought Manor, Destiny, Vic and Madders, they all adjusted well. But to be fair, it’s like I’m working with 30 new signatures because they’re all kind of new to me. I’ve just arrived at Tottenham, they’ve been here for a while but they do things a bit differently.
I look at things from a collective perspective of course, but they (the new signings) have shown good things in training in terms of us identifying them because we thought they had qualities that we thought would complement our football.
When you talked about things you had to work on, are they defensive things?
In part, it is. The goals we conceded are partly on me – we haven’t worked a lot on the kind of defensive areas and structures around set pieces and things like that. I can’t expect the guys to bring everything on board. For the most part I thought the pressure defensively was really good and we didn’t allow too many chances as you said. But we don’t want to concede goals while producing a small number of chances.
But this is not the kind of thing that is worked on. There are still things in our structure where we could have moved the ball quicker and the boys are not in exactly the position they need to be. And there are a few things we have to keep developing, which is only natural as they get fitter to play this kind of football. We are still in the early stages. At the same time, we only have three weeks to get ready for the first game, so we are working hard.
There seemed a clear intention to play out from the back, did that please you?
Yes, that’s what I’m talking about with intent. You know there are consequences if we don’t get it right, but I try to give the players a certainty and a structure to encourage them to let go of that fear and play that kind of football. That’s the kind of team we want to be. At the moment, there will be missteps along the way – that’s only natural. But I’m trying to make sure the players understand that if we go away or back down it will mean we’re playing the kind of football that I don’t want us to play.
So we have to be all in on this. For the most part I think they were trying to be, but obviously at times it didn’t flow that well because we weren’t quite sure what position to take, but the good thing is that at least we got moments , where we can show them that under extreme pressure you can get the kind of results that allow us to then work on it.
Starting to see the combinations you want between players?
Not at the moment, but it’s going to be an important part because when you’re trying to play the kind of football we want, it’s very much about the relationship between certain parts of the pitch, whether it’s the left side or the right side. , the centre-backs, the full-backs, and you only get that relationship by playing with each other, training those patterns, and at the moment it’s fair to say we haven’t done enough of that. Ivan and Destiny, all our internationals arrived less than a week ago – it was Thursday I think they all got together so you’re talking about five days work so they won’t [relationships]but when I see them trying—and it’s a little mechanical at the moment rather than natural, because they’re going because I’ve asked them to go, rather than because they feel it—that’s a good place for me, and it’s about , that I now try to keep giving them the information, together with the other coaches, to set up the training so that it becomes an instinctive thing, and a relationship thing where they work together.
When you see them playing under extreme pressure on the byline, does it make you feel like your message is getting through?
That’s what I mean – there’s enough in that game that I can show back to the players and give us a foundation to work on. We could have played this game and won 1-0 and not shown any of that. It would be difficult for me because it means we haven’t made an impression as a coaching staff in the first 10 days. That we see some of that is what I was hoping for tonight. We sit down with the boys, we want to show them where there could have been even more moments like that, opportunities we missed, we want to work on aspects of the game where we weren’t as strong as we should have been. . But all that comes from the evidence that they tried to play our football, so that’s the most important thing for me.
Did you feel the love out there?
I’m not one to sit and feel, I’m a bit focused on the job at hand. We’ve had an incredible support here, it’s been great to be back home for sure, 100%, and just generally we had 6,000 at training yesterday, we’ve had so many people around the hotel over the last few days, and I know the players have felt it and then you realize in a way how big the football club is here. But from a personal perspective it’s been great to be back here – I don’t have a good record for friendlies in Australia with overseas clubs, but from my perspective it was just nice to be back home for a while but the focus is on the job.