Tottenham seemed to have real motivation ahead of the important Europa League quarter-final against Eintracht Frankfurt in midweek. This was demonstrated through Spurs' impressive 3-1 victory over Southampton in the Premier League.
Brennan Johnson's double helped the "Roosters" control the game when leading 2-0 in the first half. In just the first 45 minutes, they had 6 shots on target, 21 touches in the opponent's penalty area and controlled the ball 58%.
However, after the final whistle, doubts and optimism returned when Spurs conceded a goal late in the match. This created an unsatisfactory end to Tottenham's unimpressive second half.
Unlike in the first half, Tottenham only had 2 shots on target, 4 touches in the opponent's penalty area and controlled the ball 44%.
To be fair, about Tottenham's players, perhaps their attention has been on the important match in the Europa League. There were encouraging performances from the best player of the match Johnson, along with midfielders James Maddison and Lucas Bergvall. However, Spurs will need more from captain Son Heung-min, one of the first changes Ange Postecoglou made.
While the Australian coach admitted that he was not satisfied with his performance in the second half, he also emphasized the importance of a second home win in 2025. This victory will prepare them for a big match in the European Cup.
In the end, Postecoglou understood that if they continued to show weak play against Frankfurt, the Spurs season would look over.
Notably, Postecoglou once again appeared extremely angry after VAR took nearly 5 minutes to deny Spurs' goal for offside.
In the 33rd minute, Bergvall seemed to have doubled the gap for Tottenham after an accurate shot from a set piece. However, after consulting VAR for 4 minutes and 50 seconds, the main referee decided not to recognize the goal due to a very small offside error.
"If someone told me a few years ago that a football match would have to stop for 5 minutes just to wait for a decision, I would not believe it.
They draw those lines to determine offside, but does anyone really believe in their absolute accuracy? I don't want to criticize anyone personally, but having to wait 5 minutes like that is clearly not the reason technology is put into football" - Postecoglou said after the win over Southampton.
