Gary Neville says Postecoglou got it wrong with two Tottenham players against Tottenham

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Tottenham and Liverpool played out a superb game of Premier League football yesterday as Spurs eventually won out 2-1.

In a game marred by controversy and bad VAR calls, Tottenham eventually won out thanks to an own goal from Joel Matip late in the day. Spurs will have felt it was just reward for pushing to win against the nine men, who eventually wilted.

However, Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville felt that against the nine men, Ange Postecoglou got it wrong with his use of Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro.

Neville says Porro and Udogie should have moved positions

Speaking on his podcast after the game yesterday, Neville harped back to his days at Manchester United and believes Porro and Udogie should have stayed wider.

“The full backs, I would have said go to a more traditional system. Don’t go in there looking to actually play. Go wide with your wingers and really stretch that midfield. So Liverpool have a five and they have a three, so the two in there in this case, Udogie and Porro, you stretch yourself wide so you’ve got two on each side,” Neville said.

“What you’re doing then is stretching the pitch to its maximum. That’s what we used to do. For me, they weren’t working those positions hard enough.”

Lessons to learn

Neville also touched on this in his comments as he went into more detail but this is something Ange Postecoglou will be looking at after the game.

Until Matip’s own goal, Tottenham had looked like they’d ran out of ideas really. As Neville says, playing against ten and nine men can be a real challenge and it’s something Ange will want to improve on.

Of course, getting the win was the big thing anyway and Tottenham fans won’t really care about how it came about.

But there’ll be games later in the season where a change in tact might be needed to get over the line.

Postecoglou, then will have work to do.