nge Postecoglou says he has not addressed his squad about the loss of Harry Kane and believes the 2-2 draw with Brentford was a positive starting point to life after the England captain.
Tottenham began the new season with an entertaining draw in west London, with defenders Cristian Romero and Emerson Royal on the scoresheet.
On the eve of the game, Kane left Spurs after nine years at his boyhood club to join Bayern Munich in a deal worth at least £100million.
Asked if he had spoken to his players about Kane’s departure, Postecoglou said: “Football clubs move on pretty quickly. I haven’t needed to address it, I haven’t needed to give them a warm fuzzy cuddle just to see how they are. We had a game to prepare for and they knew that.
“I think that was the important thing for us. If it felt like we were distracted, I was distracted or anyone else, I think you would have seen evidence of it today, particularly after that first half and the way it went.”
Romero’s early opener was cancelled out by Bryan Mbuemo’s penalty and Yoan Wissa put the Bees in front before Emerson’s equaliser in first-half stoppage-time.
“We showed a real resilience that we’re going to need because it’s going to be a challenging year for sure,” continued Postecoglou. “We’re going to need that when we lose our most influential defender at 1-0 when we’ve already got two guys making their debut in the back four.
“If you concede goals that are kind of out of your control, the fact that they showed the resilience they did was a good sign.”
The visitors finished the game with 18 shots and 69 percent of possession — a dramatic difference from their passive performances under Antonio Conte last season. Postecoglou admitted his side lacked cutting edge but is confident they will only get better.
“We have to,” he said. “Whatever we did today you never know because, we haven’t had the ideal pre-season, so in the back of my mind I’m thinking that as much as you have to be ready I was concerned whether we were from a physical standpoint and I don’t think we are, but part of that is also how the players embrace that challenge.
“It was a good starting point for us today but we need to improve and we have to improve and we will. I think that 2-1 down, having conceded a penalty and an own goal, it would have been very easy for us to drop our heads but I never sensed that in the group.
“They were pretty determined to get back in the game and I thought we did that well and maybe just lacked a bit of cutting edge today.”
