Postecoglou responds to Eric Dier’s claim about Spurs’ lack of tactical work

Ange Postecoglou has responded to Eric Dier’s claim that Tottenham do not do much tactical work in training under the new regime, with the Australian insisting that every single drill is done to get the side to play their brand of football.

In an interview with The Overlap last week, Dier was asked to contrast and compare the management and tactical styles of the various managers he has had at Tottenham.

The Englishman was quite complimentary of Postecoglou and insisted that he quite enjoyed working with the Australian for six months even though he did not get to play much.

When asked about the tactical work that the 58-year-old does on the training pitch, the Bayern defender said: “Interestingly, he really doesn’t do any tactical work (in training). ‘What he does is, every single training drill from Monday to Friday is drawn up to represent the way that he wants to play.

“Conte, I could do it blind, but that was a lot of tactical work Monday to Friday, a lot of ten versus zero, walkthroughs. You were so well drilled, it would be ingrained in you.”

Ange Postecoglou disagrees with tactical comments

Postecoglou has now suggested that it depends on how one defines ‘tactics’, insisting all training drills have a tactical core to them since they are designed to perfect the team’s style of play.

When asked about Dier’s comments, the Tottenham head told Sky Sports: “It’s probably something you’d have to ask Eric, I don’t know what you mean by tactical work. Everything we do is geared on how we are going to play our football, so for me by extension is tactical work.

“Whether that’s on us, or whether it’s on the opposition. In fact, I would probably say we don’t do anything apart from tactical work. That’s all we do every day. If we’re working on our fitness, we’re still trying to play our football. But I haven’t seen the interview so I’m not sure what he’s referencing.”

However, Postecoglou acknowledged that he and his coaching staff do not spend any time on the training field coming up with specific ways to stop each opposition.

He continued: “If you’re talking about do we do training where we’re standing around and working on how we’re going to stop an opposition, how we’re going to break down, no we don’t do that.

“But I don’t think that’s the only kind of tactical work that exists. I think anyone who trains with us will tell you that all we do is train the way we play. Maybe that’s not tactical work, I don’t know!”

Spurs Web Opinion

Dier and Ange are pretty much saying the same thing here. It seems like a journalist attempted to get an angry response from the Spurs boss by quoting Dier out of context but the Australian clearly did not bite.

Related Topics