Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou refuses to hold stars to account as sack threat looms

Tottenham boss refused to hold his players to account after the Lilywhites suffered their 17th defeat of the season at the hands of Wolves on Sunday. Spurs were second best throughout the encounter at Molineux as the home side won the clash 4-2.

Tottenham have endured a dreadful second season under Postecoglou and fell behind in the Black Country just two minutes into the game as Rayan Ait-Nouri volleyed the ball past Guglielmo Vicario after the Spurs keeper had opted to punch a free-kick away instead of catching it. Vicario was then at fault for Wolves' second goal as he pushed an Ait-Nouri cross straight into Djed Spence, with the ball ricocheting into the back of the net. Mathys Tel pulled a goal back for the visitors, before Cristian Romero was dispossessed by Ait-Nouri, who teed up Jorgen Strand Larsen for a third. Richarlison gave Spurs hope as he bundled the ball in from close range late on, but Matheus Cunha wrapped up victory for the home side seconds later.

After being asked by Match of the Day whether he would be holding players accountable for the result, Postecoglou snapped: "No mate, mistakes are part of football. I'm not going to be holding anyone to account, the only one who gets held to account is me.

"Like I said, it's just one of those things in football, we got punished for our errors today and it made the game really difficult for us."

He added: "I thought we played pretty well but conceded some pretty poor goals - individual errors cost us today. It's disappointing to lose.

"Moments in the game where usually we're pretty good at, they make the game awfully difficult for us."

The pressure is continuing to mount on Postecoglou, who has been unable to turn his side's fortunes around in recent months.

But he refused to lay blame on Vicario when he spoke to Sky Sports as he stated: "Vic has been outstanding for us. Mistakes happen, but they've happened all on the same day for us.

"They're clearly not happy and they shouldn't be. I'm not happy and the players aren't happy."

The manager, who has been who appears to be leaking confidential information in recent weeks, then explained: "It's a funny old game, the performance wasn't too bad but the goals we conceded made it difficult for us.

"I thought we were in the game and controlled it well, but kept concede really poor goals."

And he didn't put the result down to 'nerves' either as he added: "It's the first time I've seen it. It's not creeping in, it just happened today."