Premier League: Tottenham Hotspur 2 [Gallagher 86; Van Hecke 90+8] Aston Villa 3 [Manzambi 45+4; Jackson 67; Buend\u00eda 79] <\/p>\n
Roberto De Zerbi tore into his failing Tottenham team after their 3-2 defeat by Aston Villa, saying \u201cwe can\u2019t lose the game in this way\u201d. The Italian headed straight down the tunnel at full-time, but was once again forced to endure boos as Tottenham went into the three-week international break without a Premier League victory to their name and just two points on the board.<\/p>\n
De Zerbi criticised his team\u2019s mentality, but also the physical condition of his players, and said the substitute Mohammed Kudus had disrupted the balance of his team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very disappointed, sad and frustrated for the performance,\u201d De Zerbi said. \u201cWe can\u2019t lose the game in this way, we can\u2019t concede the second goal, we can\u2019t lose balance just because we are losing. I spoke with our four attackers in minute 51, I asked them to use their head, all second half I was telling people to be calm. But the second goal was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicolas Jackson scored in the 67th minute after latching on to a long kick by the impressive Zion Suzuki. De Zerbi said his players had been prepped to deal with the Villa goalkeeper\u2019s clearances, but had switched off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew this season Aston Villa are playing 86 per cent more long balls than last season and we spoke in many meetings about it,\u201d De Zerbi said. \u201cNow we have to explain another game like [the home defeat against] Newcastle where we played the first half well, got to 60 minutes okay, and then we lose.\u201d<\/p>\n
With players now heading out to play for their national sides, De Zerbi said he had left them with no parting message. \u201cI didn\u2019t speak with the players today because I didn\u2019t want to say anything,\u201d he said. \u201cThe players who go with the national team have to play and work and the others; for sure we have to work more because I didn\u2019t like the finish to this game. We can\u2019t say everything is bad, but it is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Unai Emery, a first Premier League victory of the season was to serve as a reminder to his players of the style of play that has resulted in success for Villa in recent seasons. \u201cThe players did well because they believed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed to build a team that could play in this way, could defend with resilience and playing with passion when our opponents were attacking. We needed defenders, we needed the keeper, we needed everyone committed in that direction. We needed to feel strong first, then we could try to play with our structure and our ability. This is the competitive way.\u201d \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Premier League: Tottenham Hotspur 2 [Gallagher 86; Van Hecke 90+8] Aston Villa 3 [Manzambi 45+4; Jackson 67; Buend\u00eda…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15134,42,43,1102,40,38,41,39,3568],"class_list":["post-630248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-aston-villa","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-premier-league","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tottenham-hotspur"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}