Tottenham captain Archie Gray has delivered a brutally honest assessment of the 3-0 defeat to Brentford, insisting the players must take responsibility for an opening day performance that fell well below expectations.
Three months without competitive action ended in embarrassing fashion on Saturday as Tottenham suffered a 3-0 defeat to Brentford in their opening Premier League fixture.
Few saw such a disappointing performance coming after an unbeaten pre-season and £237m spent on summer signings. Spurs looked disjointed from the opening whistle, with careless possession and a lack of intensity.
In fairness, almost half of the starting XI would not be guaranteed starters if Roberto De Zerbi had a fully fit squad available. Even so, there was an expectation for the team to show considerably more fight than it did.
De Zerbi admitted afterwards that Tottenham were ‘late to the Premier League’ and said he does not yet feel they are a team, insisting he still needs time.
Archie Gray refuses to make excuses for Tottenham defeat
It was a memorable day for 20 year old Archie Gray, who became the youngest captain in Tottenham’s history after De Zerbi named him as one of the club’s five captains on Friday.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the defeat, Gray said: “They’ve just outfought us. You know, for some reasons on days in football, a team will outfight another team, and, you know, we weren’t. For whatever reason, we weren’t, up for the fight as they were, and that’s on us.
“And, for the fans, they were incredible, and for us to let them down like that on the first game… there’s not really words for it. So, you know, we need to bounce back from that.”
When asked whether Tottenham’s defeat was down to their mentality or physical level, Gray refused to offer any excuses and instead accepted that the players needed to take a long look at themselves.
“I don’t think there’s any excuses, to be honest. I think, you know, we’ll all look at ourselves in the mirror, and it wasn’t good enough. Like I said, we all lost too many duels, and I think that was the main part of the game that we lost.”
Roberto De Zerbi also admits Tottenham lost too many duels
De Zerbi had considerably more to say about Tottenham’s performance, but he agreed with his captain’s assessment that the lack of intensity in the duels was a major factor.
Asked about the reasons behind the defeat, the Italian said to football.london: “For many reasons. I think we are not a team yet. For a lot of reasons…
“I couldn’t lose confidence in my players. I believe in my players, I believe in my club, I believe in myself. I think we are working well, but in this moment.
“I knew after the Hoffenheim game, I said we are not in the right point, we are late for the start of the Premier League. But it’s a step, we have to improve quickly.
“Anyway, we could fight stronger than we did today. We lost too many duels, we made too many mistakes in the timing when we wanted to push the pressure higher. We arrived second for the second ball, we didn’t win one second ball, one duel, one tackle, and it’s tough.”