After a difficult night for his team in Turkey, Ange Postecoglou spoke to the press about his young players and discussed the performance of Will Lankshear, Lucas Bergvall, and Archie Gray.
Ange Postecoglou made a number of changes to his starting lineup for the trip to RAMS Park for the Europa League tie with Galatasaray.
Some, like the centre-back pairing of Radu Dragusin and Ben Davies, were enforced by the injuries to Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven.
However, Postecolgou also opted to include teenagers Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall, and Will Lankshear in the starting lineup, throwing them into the intense atmosphere in Turkey for a very steep learning curve indeed.
Lankshear’s night started brilliantly, with the forward bagging his first Tottenham goal to draw the two teams level. However, his outing ended in disaster, with a red card after picking up two cheap yellow cards.
Bergvall struggled in the middle of the park, while Gray had to play out of position at left-back, and deal with an onslaught of attacks from Galatasaray.
In his post-match press conference (via Football.London), Postecoglou was asked how he felt the youngsters fared, and he remained fairly positive all things considered.
He said: “Will took his goal well, he worked hard for the team. Obviously he hasn’t had a lot of experience at senior football so he would have learnt a lot today. The red card, it was a bit of overenthusiasm in that moment to give away a foul, but he’ll learn from that.
Postecoglou added: “The same with Lucas here. Giving him an understanding of the levels here. It is not easy when you are playing away in Europe. You can only allow them to learn that by exposing them to it.”
Overall, it wasn’t a great night for any of the Tottenham players, aside from one or two positive moments. But, looking at the silver linings, these three teenagers have experienced one of the toughest atmospheres they’re ever likely to play in and Lankshear got his first goal, which will do him a world of good.
The post Postecoglou reacts to Will Lankshear and Lucas Bergvall struggles vs Galatasaray appeared first on Spurs Web.
