Tottenham Hotspur suffered a narrow defeat in their latest pre-season game.
In comments reported by Football London, Mauricio Pochettino has apologised to Manchester United for some of the challenges they faced during their 2-1 win against Tottenham on Thursday, with the Spurs boss hinting that he was annoyed with some of his own players.
Spurs were beaten in Shanghai, with Angel Gomes scoring late on after Lucas Moura had cancelled out Anthony Martial’s first-half opener for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side.
The game may have been played in a friendly competition, but it still proved to be a feisty contest. They were 30 fouls, and a couple of moments where tensions boiled over.
And after the game, Pochettino seemed to admit that he was not entirely happy with his players at certain stages during the contest.
“Yes it’s true I was a little bit annoyed about some situations,” he said, as reported by Football London.
“Of course when you are so hot and sometimes you arrive late and something can happen. I apologise on behalf of our players to Manchester United. It’s not intention and sometimes when you arrive late these things can happen.”
While Pochettino may not be overly happy, he will be pleased that the squad appear to be taking their pre-season games extremely seriously. It should certainly help when they return to competitive action on the opening day of the new Premier League season next month against Aston Villa.
And with the likes of Inter Milan and Real Madrid still to face before pre-season concludes, Spurs should be extremely well set as they look to emulate, and perhaps surpass, what they achieved last season.
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