Ange Postecoglou is fine with Tottenham remaining the great entertainers even though he expressed his disappointment after they dropped points at home to Roma.
Spurs looked on the verge of backing up Saturday’s 4-0 thrashing of Manchester City with a hard-fought Europa League victory after Son Heung-min and Brennan Johnson struck in the first half to cancel out Evan N’Dicka’s leveller. Spurs never truly in control against Roma despite having the chances to wrap up the match in the second half after hitting the woodwork thrice and squandered a succession of chances. It eventually came back to bite them as moments after Fraser Forster pulled off an outstanding save to deny Gianluca Mancini, Mats Hummels equalized in stoppage time.
The 2-2 draw has seen Spurs climb to ninth in the league phase of the Europa League, which means they would currently miss out on automatic qualification through to the last-16 stage, but Postecoglou will not capitulate during their final three group ties.
‘No,’ Postecoglou smiled when asked if he would ditch artistic merit for results to clinch a top-eight finish.
‘Why can’t it just be entertaining? Isn’t it why we all come? Would you really prefer us to sketch out a couple of 0-0 draws and a 1-0 win and we get through? I don’t know.
‘I would much rather we’re exciting to watch and maybe it is edge-of-the-seat-stuff and sometimes we don’t get the reward, like we could have tonight, but no, if you want those kind of games, there are plenty in world football you can watch every weekend.
‘I’d like to think when you tune into us you’ll be entertained.
‘There’s three games to go and we’re in a pretty decent position. You try to win every game you can and see where that takes you.
‘I think it’ll probably be clearer after the next round but it’s all pretty tight from what I understand. That’s what you expect.’