Ange Postecoglou highlighted poor discipline and an injury to Cristian Romero as reasons behind Tottenham’s defeat to rivals Chelsea.
Spurs found themselves two up early on in the game through Dominic Solanke and Dejan Kulusevski but goals from Jadon Sancho and a penalty from Cole Palmer levelled the score at two each.
Enzo Fernandez then scored with a great strike before another Palmer penalty sealed the win, despite a late consolation goal from Heung-Min Son.
“It’s a sore one for sure, it’s painful,” Postecoglou told Sky Sports after the defeat, Tottenham’s seventh in 15 Premier League games.
“We started the game really well and we lose Romero. Nothing’s going smoothly for us and we had to reshuffle and they get a goal in that moment.
“I still think we had some big moments to get a third and finish the game off.
“The second half was a bit of a ding-dong for quite a while. They obviously scored and we had a big chance with Sonny and we don’t take it.
“The two penalties weren’t great from our behalf, a bit of poor discipline in the box.
“It’s a key point when you lose a player (Romero) in the first 20 minutes when you’ve started well, especially a centre-back. He felt something in his quad and couldn’t continue so it’s not ideal.
“When we are playing our football, we’re tough to stop.
“We’ve still got to maintain some discipline. Like I said, I thought the penalties we gave away were poor. There’s no need and the game was still in the balance. We still had the best chance at 2-2 before those penalties to go 3-2 up so when you’re playing top teams, the momentum shifts happen pretty quickly.”
Romero and centre-back partner Micky Van de Ven were surprise inclusions in Postecoglou’s starting 11 having been injured of late, but the latter also limped off in the second half of the defeat.
On Van de Ven’s injury, Postecoglou said: “I don’t think it’s anything. He felt a bit tired and to be honest, the plan was for him to only play 60 or 70 minutes today but of course then we lost Romero and he was the one who was sort of going well, and that hamstrung us a little bit because we didn’t have any other centre-backs.
“Hopefully it’s not too bad. It was good to have him out there. The first 20 minutes we had Romero and Micky out there and we looked a strong team.”
