Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou cannot afford to play all-out attacking football with Ben Davies and Eric Dier as his centre-back pairing, claims Jamie O’Hara. The former Spurs midfielder has called on a change of approach when the first-choice players are unavailable.
Tottenham were forced into fielding a much-changed team for the trip to Wolves on Saturday. James Maddison and Micky van de Ven are both out until the New Year due to injuries, while Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie were absent through suspension.
Davies returned from his own injury to play alongside Dier, who was making his first Premier League start of the season. Spurs got off to the perfect start when summer signing Brennan Johnson scored early.
They were forced to dig deep as Wolves pushed for an equaliser which eventually came through Pablo Sarabia in the first minute of second-half stoppage time. Spurs weren’t happy with a point after leading for the vast majority of the match and went in search of a winner.
But Wolves hit them on the counter and Mario Lemina poked home to condemn the north London side to a second defeat in a row. Postecoglou has reiterated his desire to stick to his guns in terms of approach but O’Hara says that cannot be the case when so many players are unavailable.
He fumed on talkSPORT: “I’m all for the ‘this is the way we are and this is what we’re going to do and this is how we’re going to play’ and I get that. But you’re not playing in Scotland and you’re Celtic and you’re the best team and the rest of the teams are dog.
“You’re playing against top sides. Wolves are a good team at home, they’ve got some good players and a good manager.
“If you just keep making stupid mistakes and you keep playing this gung-ho football and trying to win it, a point’s not a bad result. The players on the bench who have had to come in and play aren’t good enough.
“Ben Davies is okay and he will do a job, but he’s not a centre half. Eric Dier made two mistakes and is in no man’s land for both goals. I don’t know where he’s trying to go.
“We should have got rid of him in the summer, no one wanted him and he ended up back in the team and this is the problem. These players you’ve been trying to get rid of, they end up playing again.”
Udogie will return following the international break for the visit of Aston Villa. However, Spurs will be without Yves Bissouma after he picked up his fifth yellow card of the season at Molineux.
