Ange Postecoglou looks ‘BEATEN’ at Tottenham and they have ‘fallen off a cliff’, claims Jamie Redknapp – as Spurs crumble against Chelsea and their manager loses his temper

Ange Postecoglou looks like a ‘beaten’ man at Tottenham with his side having ‘fallen off a cliff,’ Jamie Redknapp has claimed. 

The Spurs boss cut a frustrated figure during and after their 2-0 defeat by Chelsea on Thursday night.

A touchline outburst at his players and snappy talk towards reporters summed up his vexation, with Chelsea winning thanks to goals from Trevoh Chalobah and Nicolas Jackson. 

It leaves Spurs seven points off the top four after three consecutive losses and only two wins in seven games. 

‘I look at the manager and he looks beaten,’ Redknapp told Sky Sports. 

‘I was like, “wow, that’s pretty damning.” I don’t like to see a manager like that. When you manage Tottenham – he’s not been there that long – a lot of them get like that after a while but that’s really early. 

‘Players aren’t playing at the level they were earlier in the season. If you want to compete and have played as few games as Tottenham have, you’ve got to be performing every single week. That’s really disappointing when I look at how good they were early in the season. 

‘They didn’t win individual battles, didn’t win enough second balls, they were so passive, especially in the first half in a derby game where you have to win those battles, play forward and look to pass with a bit of urgency. They didn’t do all the basics.

‘When Ange took over, I was watching the football thinking, “this is almost revolutionary.” You’ve got two men coming into midfield, the two full-backs looking fantastic, people playing at such a high level.

‘But they’ve fallen off a cliff now. They’ve won two out of their last seven since they beat Aston Villa away in one of the best performances I’ve seen this season.’

The 4-0 triumph away at Villa back in March felt like a pivotal day in the race for the top four, but Spurs have floundered since. 

With the prospect of fifth place getting in the Champions League now extinguished, Spurs have to plug a seven-point gap to Unai Emery’s side, with just a game in hand and four fixtures left. 

Redknapp thinks Spurs have no excuses and believes the team will have to be strengthened in the summer to withstand a European campaign and mount another challenge.  

He said: ‘The other thing, they’ve only played 37 games this year. They lost in the Carabao Cup in the second round and lost in the fourth round of the FA Cup to Manchester City. There’s no fatigue involved. 

‘That was a bit of a worrying interview from Ange. I’ve watched his interviews for a while now and he’s slowly but surely not looking like he’s enjoying it as much as when he first came.

‘I still feel Tottenham have the players and structure there. But they definitely need to thicken up the squad. The subs coming on aren’t at the level they need.’

Postecoglou raged at Pape Matar Sarr and Cristian Romero in the first half, screaming: ‘Stop passing it backwards’.

While Tottenham are one of the most exciting teams to watch in the Premier League, their defensive issues are bleak. 

Postecoglou’s men have leaked 54 goals this season, almost double that of Arsenal’s 28. 

Multiple players have hit a dip at the wrong time, with Micky van de Ven faulty in their 4-0 crushing at Newcastle, James Maddison less impactful than before his injury (and dropped against Chelsea), and Son Heung-min scoring just twice in his last seven games. 

Afterwards, Postecoglou accepted the blame on his players’ behalf as he said: ‘It is on me to fix it. We had bigger issues tonight than set pieces. We lacked belief and conviction in our game.

‘I don’t know if it is low confidence but we are not playing with the mindset we need to play the football we want to. It wasn’t good enough and I have to take responsibility for that.

‘When we put in a performance like we did in the first half, it meant my message wasn’t getting through.’

Asked what that message was, Postecoglou said: ‘Come on mate, we didn’t play well, do you want me to write you a dossier of where it went wrong?

‘I feel like we’ve lost a bit of belief and conviction in our football, and that is on me to change that.

‘It wasn’t about conceding the (first) goal, it was our approach to playing football and we were nowhere near good enough. That is on me.

‘We’ve been in a bit of a grind for a while now, that is part of our challenge and part of our growth.

‘We have to go out there and perform and sometimes you have to grind out. We were poor today.’