Ange Postecoglou dismisses Tottenham set-piece 'narrative': 'We work on them all the time'

Ange Postecoglou says improving Tottenham 's defending at set pieces is "my burden to carry" after Gabriel Magalhaes scored from a corner to settle Sunday's north London derby.

The Brazilian eased Cristian Romero aside to head home Bukayo Saka's inswinging corner in the 64th minute and give Arsenal a third consecutive win at the home of their rivals for the first time since the 1980s .

It was the tenth time Spurs have conceded from a dead-ball situation under Postecoglou, who last season insisted he was "not interested" in discussing the issue.

Arsenal , in stark contrast, have become dead-ball specialists under the guidance of Mikel Arteta and set-piece coach Nicolas Jover.

For some reason people think I don't care about set pieces ... it's a narrative

Asked if Spurs had done extra work on set pieces in the build-up to the game, Postecoglou said: "I know, I know, for some reason people think I don't care about set pieces and it's a narrative that you can keep going on for ages and ages. I understand that.

"Like I said, we work on them all the time like we do for every other team. You know that they're a threat, as I said, for the most part, we handled them really well today, but we switched off for one and we paid a price and you learn from that and you move on.

"But it is what it is, you know, it's my burden to carry, mate, and I'm happy to do that. It's not like, like I've always said, for me, there's a bigger picture that's at play here that's much more important than the finer details of us getting to where we want to. For us, the way forward is to try to turn the football we're playing now into something meaningful."

Nick Montgomery , who joined Postecoglou's coaching staff in the summer, has taken over the lion's share of the work on attacking and defensive set pieces in training.

Postecoglou added: "We've handled them OK. Arsenal are obviously a very big threat at set pieces. It only takes one. It wasn't just Romero, a couple of others switched off as well. The delivery was spot on and Gabriel is always a threat in those situations. We paid a price for it."

The defeat leaves Spurs with four points from as many games and rueing another wasteful display in front of goal.

Those they had 63.7 per cent of possession, the hosts struggled to carve out clear opportunities against an Arsenal side missing Declan Rice and captain Martin Odegaard, with Dejan Kulusevski going closest with two efforts turned away by David Raya in the first half.

"We had some good opportunities but we could have created so many more, we just wasted some of our good play," Postecoglou said.

"Similar to our other games where we haven't really had that conviction in the front third to take advantage of...whether it's us winning the ball back or getting into that front third and nothing coming of it. You keep opposition teams in the game when you do that.

"We've just got to keep working at it, that's my job. I've just got to keep giving the feedback to the guys, trying to guide them in the right way to make them see that for all their dominance in the game, you need to really be clear-headed in those kind of moments and, that's my role to try to guide them in the right way."

Areta afterwards praised Jover, who joined from rivals Manchester City in summer 2021 and has helped turn the Gunners into one of Europe's best sides at dead balls.

Asked if he considered Jover the best in his field, Arteta said: "In his field, in other fields, as a person. The relationship that we have, that’s why I made the decision to bring him to City when I was there and then to Arsenal.

“Him and the staff have injected a belief to the players that there are many ways to win football matches. This is a really powerful one. It’s given us a lot so big compliment to all of them."

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