Ange Postecoglou may well unleash a brand new Tottenham partnership on Brentford at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Wednesday evening
Spurs’ hopes of winning the FA Cup were dashed for another year after they were eliminated by Man City on Friday night. It seemed like the teams would be playing out a cup rematch in Manchester, with neither team failing to give the visitors much of a fight in the last third.
But in the 88th minute, Nathan Ake made sure that wasn’t going to happen when he scored on the rebound of a Kevin De Bruyne corner. Ruben Dias and the goalkeeper were battling for the ball when Tottenham called for a foul on Guglielmo Vicario, but the visitors won the call.
With eighteen minutes remaining, Ange Postecoglou brought on the returning James Maddison as they looked for a late victory after their dismal performance that saw them manage just one attempt on goal. After just managing six touches of the ball at a period when Pep Guardiola’s team was applying more pressure to the Lilywhites, the 27-year-old regrettably was unable to participate in the proceedings.
While Postecoglou acknowledged in his pregame news conference that Maddison was well enough to play following an almost three-month absence due to an ankle injury, he decided against starting the England international and instead to gradually ease him back in. Rodrigo Bentancur and Cristian Romero were both thrust into the starting lineup ahead of schedule after making quick recoveries, but that was sadly not to be the case with the former Leicester City player.
“Not really,” Postecoglou responded when asked if it was a close call to start the player off the field during his post-game news conference. “I believe that he has trained well over the past week and a half, but he has missed a lot of football due to the circumstances of the game today.
“We needed him and others to contribute for the two games that are coming up next week, but we were expecting to get him some minutes today, which he did, and he should be good to play from now on. Thus, there wasn’t much of a decision over whether or not to start him. More than anything else, I thought that simply coming off the bench would benefit us as a team.”
