Ange Postecoglou described it as a ‘tough, tight game’ after we played out a 1-1 draw against Fulham in the Premier League on Sunday.
Brennan Johnson was there again to open the scoring on 54 minutes - his 10th of the season in all competitions - but Fulham levelled through Tom Cairney’s strike on 67 minutes and that’s how it stayed at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
We had chances in the first half as Bernd Leno denied Heung-Min Son and James Maddison’s free-kick clipped the post, but Fraser Forster was also called into action to keep out Raul Jimenez and Alex Iwobi.
> At the end, after the red card, we were trying to build momentum, but at that point there wasn’t a lot of football being played, a lot of stoppages and we couldn’t get on top of them
Cairney was sent off on 83 minutes, a straight red for a foul on Dejan Kulusevski, but despite the man advantage, and seven minutes of added time, it proved a frustrating end to the game as we struggled to step back into our rhythm.
“It was a tough game, for sure,” reflected Ange. “There weren’t a lot of openings for either team, both had one or two good chances. We started the game really well, had chances to go ahead, missed those and then they had their spell and Fraser pulled off a couple of saves. In the second half, once we scored, I felt like we could grow into the game, but we weren’t able to push on and they scored a decent goal from the edge of the box to get them back into the game. At the end, after the red card, we were trying to build momentum, but at that point there wasn’t a lot of football being played, a lot of stoppages and we couldn’t get on top of them.”