Ange Postecoglou says Tottenham “made it harder than it should have been” against Man Utd in their Carabao Cup quarter-final victory.
Spurs – who will face Liverpool in the semi-finals – overcame Ruben Amorim’s side 4-3 on Thursday evening but were 3-0 up and cruising before Fraser Forster assisted a couple to get the visitors back into the game.
Heung-min Son scored directly from a corner late on to help seal the win, though Jonny Evans did head in a 94th-minute goal.
It was a chaotic match in north London and Postecoglou was pretty giddy after the victory, asking the Sky Sports interviewer: “Are you not entertained?”.
“We made it harder than it should have been, we were well in control, played really well, we looked like we were going to manage the game and then two unfortunate moments, the first one affected Fraser and then the second one came as a result of that,” the Australian said. “But we showed character and scored a fourth.
“I like the whole game. Are you not entertained? I know the studio is probably having a meltdown over my lack of tactics.
“We’ve got so many absences at the moment, centre halves, kids on the bench. If we get through the period we’re going to get enormous growth out of it.
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“I really liked how we played tonight, obviously those moments tainted it a bit and that has happened this season before and it doesn’t help our consistency, but the mentality of the boys… I love it.
“I love football land love watching teams that go out there to entertain. Obviously we want to be successful and we won’t be if we make things difficult like we did tonight.
“We’re not going out there to try and grind out 1-0 victories, we’re trying to keep folks entertained. I can’t see how that’s a bad thing.
“It’s part of football, mistakes will happen. From the context of how we play as a team, there’s nothing we need to change. It doens’t get me any credit in the bank as an astute tacticisan, but so be it.”
Man Utd head coach Amorim thinks his side were superior to their hosts and were “comfortable” throughout the match.
“We disconnected at beginning of the second half, that was difficult,” he said.
“If you look at all of the game we were the best team but they were more clinical. We lost but the fight from the lads was really important for me.
“You feel it in stadium, we were comfortable, dominated possession. It was not the last pass but the last shot that was the problem.
“Tonight I think about tomorrow, tonight I don’t feel anything. There is nothing I can say to you about what is good. Tomorrow I can say a lot of things.
“Tonight we lost and then we have to take a night to think and then tomorrow we will have a lot of good things from this game.
“We cannot think in that way that winning silverware makes everything OK. It will be a long way, we are improving, our goal is to win the Premier League, how long it will take I don’t know.”
Asked about the future of Marcus Rashford, Amorim responded: “Tomorrow we have training, he will be there preparing for next game. He is a United player, everyone has a future at Man United.”
