Tottenham’s South Korean skipper Son Heung-min has painfully admitted that recent successive defeats hurt but has responded positively in urging his teammates to adhere to the Ange Postecoglou way of playing.
A valiant Aston Villa side mustered a feisty comeback win in north London on Sunday to make it a November Spurs’ fans and the squad would love to erase from their memories.
It was only at the start of the month that Tottenham under their new boss Postecoglou were winning accolades as the new Premier League leaders but have since suddenly suffered three consecutive losses, with a list of absentees moving into double figures.
A hopeful Spurs selection went straight ahead against Villa, in similar fashion as they had done in recent defeats to Chelsea and Wolves, but were again squandering opportunities in front of goal, besides also being unable to maintain pace with the relentless attacking style Postecoglou expects for the duration of the entire match.
“I think especially in this game, when you are 1-0 up, we have to control even more,” Son told SpursPlay.
“We have to respect the [opposition] and we made a couple of mistakes this season where we are going up 1-0 and started playing a little bit slowly.
“Then conceding goals, offsides, delays in the game, this is losing our game tempo a little bit and we are giving chances to Villa to come into the game.
“Before half-time when you concede a goal from a set-piece, I think we have to be more stronger.
“The players gave everything, especially in difficult circumstances. It is just tough to take.
“It doesn’t matter how well you are playing, obviously in the end you are taking the results and we are talking about the results.
“Yeah, we created chances, good, very good. The way we are playing, I am very pleased and happy but it hurts when you lose a game, especially at home.
“We had such amazing support again and losing this game hurts.”
Tottenham will now be focusing all their attention to Sunday’s challenging trip to defending league champions Manchester City with Rodrigo Bentancur being a doubtful starter after sustaining an ankle injury in the encounter against Villa.
On the upside, Spurs will have Yves Bissouma back from suspension and will also be checking hopefully on Pape Sarr after he returned from the Senegal national team duty with a knock.
“The reality of it is that we’re not going to get too many back,” the Spurs boss said.
“We’ll get Biss back but we might have lost Bentancur. We only had six or seven on the bench so everyone who is here at the moment is going to have to play a part.”