ange Postecoglou
Your first Premier League game, what were your thoughts on the performance of your team?
Yeah, look I was pleased with the effort the lads put in. I was pleased with the way they reacted to everything that was going on in that first half.
Second half I thought we controlled the game and probably could have been a little bit more threatening in our front third to create more opportunities because we had so much of the ball but in the context of where we are at and what happened on the day, I thought what was pleasing most for me was how the players reacted to it all and the effort they put in.
What happened with Cristian Romero and how is he?
He got a head knock and it was pretty clear. The medical team were monitoring him as he progressed from there and then he scored with his head. They were pretty sure we needed for his own benefit to get him off and obviously what we know about head injuries, for me it is not even an issue. We will always err on the side of caution.
Cristian, the player is not the one you listen to in those situation because he doesn’t know what is going either, so I thought it was pretty clear what we had to do. Disappointed that we apparently filled out the wrong slip and it was not a concussion sub. In this day and age where what we know about head injuries, if we are going to worry about what form we fill out, I thought it was pretty clear what happened but hopefully he’ll be okay.
How did you think Micky van de Ven did?
Obviously we had Micky, Destiny and Vic, three of our back five making their debut for the club and anyone will tell you when it comes to the defensive side of the game, the more understanding you have, the better you are. We obviously took a bit of a gamble throwing them all in but I thought all three handled themselves really well. It is not an easy place to come, you get put under pressure with balls coming into the box and I thought they all handled themselves really well.
Micky has only had three sessions with us so I could have waited to put him in there, but my feeling is he will be a very good footballer for us and the quicker we introduce him to Premier League football the better he will be.
Does Romero stand a chance of being available for next week with the concussion protocol in mind?
I don’t know mate. Well, exactly that is where people like me should shut up and listen to the doctors so that is what I’ll do. We’ve gone beyond the stage of managers or players try to get funny about these things. It is clear the protocols are there for a reason and the welfare of the player is paramount so that decision will be made by people who know about this subject far more than I do.
That pre-match huddle in front of the fans is new, did you ask for that or was it player-led?
Nah, not me mate. I have enough on my plate. It was driven by the players and I thought our supporters were outstanding today. It is fair to say we have put them through a fair bit this pre-season and all we can try and do is give them some hope and belief that we’ll have a season where they see a team that is growing and representing the football club in the best possible way. I thought the supporters were outstanding today and hopefully they leave the ground, maybe disappointed we weren’t able to get the win, but at least seeing the players are fully committed to us trying to be a football team that makes an impact.
Is that an exciting part for you that in game one you’ve had 69% possession, 18 shots on goal and it feels like naturally this team should get better?
Yeah, we have to. Whatever we did today you never know because, we haven’t had the ideal pre-season, so in the back of my mind I’m thinking that as much as you have to be ready I was concerned whether we were from a physical standpoint and I don’t think we are, but part of that is also how the players embrace that challenge. It was a good starting point for us today but we need to improve and we have to improve and we will. I think that 2-1 down, having conceded a penalty and an own goal, it would have been very easy for us to drop our heads but I never sensed that in the group. They were pretty determined to get back in the game and I thought we did that well and maybe just lacked a bit of cutting edge today.
This was the first game since Harry left, you said the other day that you hadn’t spoken to them yet, have you addressed them yet about him because he was such a big player for the club?
I think I also said that football clubs move on pretty quickly. I haven’t needed to address it, I haven’t needed to give them a warm fuzzy cuddle just to see how they are. We had a game to prepare for and they knew that.
I think that was the important thing for us. If it felt like we were distracted, I was distracted or anyone else, I think you would have seen evidence of it today, particularly after that first half and the way it went.
We showed a real resilience that we’re going to need because it’s going to be a challenging year for sure. We’re going to need that when we lose our most influential defender at 1-0 when we’ve already got two guys making their debut in the back four.
If you concede goals that are kind of out of your control, the fact that they showed the resilience they did was a good sign.
Have you ever had a game delayed because there was no water in the stadium?
Twenty-seven years of managing mate and that’s the beauty of it, there’s always something new. So just another little line in my autobiography.
What did you make of Richarlison?
I thought he worked hard today but I felt we didn’t use him enough. I thought we could have been a little bit more direct to him and look for him a little bit more. He was making some good runs and he was working hard. He had a couple of half-opportunities but I thought we could have created more for him.
The key for us with Richy is to keep supporting him because he’s working awfully hard for the team in a defensive sense and when we get in that front third I thought we didn’t look enough for him today.
I have got a lot of time for him. He’s a striker and he’s got a lot of great attributes and he will always work hard for the team and that’s a good starting point for me.
Can you give an idea on what you see Eric Dier’s situation being this season?
Eric is part of this team. We left a few out today. We left some players on the bench today that are very good players. We need a strong squad, it’s not about 11 players. Eric is in the same boat as all the other boys. He’s working hard in training and available for selection. My decisions then are what I think will give us the best chance of success for any given game and then we reassess the week after. Nothing really unusual there.
A lot of added time in the first half, what were your thoughts when the board went up with 11 minutes on it and what are your thoughts in general on the extra time?
A fair bit went on in the first half so you kind of understand that most of it was probably taken up by injuries, there’s four goals, there’s VAR. You kind of understand. I had no real major issue. I have a minor issue with the fact that I don’t think we would be playing so much extra time if referees would hurry people up early in the game. It seems like they only hurry goalkeepers up in the last five minutes when they should be doing it in the first five minutes. If you do that kind of stuff then you don’t need that extra time and hopefully the game flows, but from my perspective I felt there would be a fair bit. You don’t want it to be a constant because if it is a constant then it means there’s been a lot of stoppages and I don’t think that’s what we want. I think the idea of it is to play football but we’d rather watch football played at a flowing rate rather than stop start, stop start and trying to get minutes out of the game. The official can help that by allowing the game to move on when it’s required..
