Ange Postecoglou insisted he was unconcerned after Tottenham’s 100 per cent start to pre-season was ended by defeat to Bayern Munich.
Spurs went down 2-1 at a sold-out Seoul World Cup Stadium in South Korea on Saturday, despite Pedro Porro’s brilliant second-half strike.
Tottenham had fallen behind early on in the South Korean capital after a mix-up between Guglielmo Vicario and Djed Spence was punished by Gabriel Vidovic and were fortunate to reach half-time only trailing 1-0 after a dominant display by Vincent Kompany’s impressive side, who are at an earlier stage of their summer preparations.
Spurs showed a lot of defensive frailties before improving slightly after the interval, but fell further behind when half-time substitute Leon Goretzka netted for Bayern before Porro’s stunner with 25 minutes to go wasn’t enough to spark a late fightback.
It was the first blip of an otherwise impressive and busy pre-season campaign for Tottenham, who edged a K-League XI in a seven-goal thriller in Seoul in midweek having beaten reigning J1 League champions Vissel Kobe in Japan following opening friendly wins over Hearts and QPR on home soil.
Tottenham now face Bayern again in the Visit Malta Cup in north London next weekend before opening the new Premier League season away at promoted Leicester on August 19.
Postecoglou acknowledged that Spurs were below-par in their first meeting with Bayern, but insisted that his side will reap the benefits of a tough 10-day training camp in the heat and humidity of East Asia further down the line.
He also pointed out that Tottenham have been without three members of their first-choice defence so far this summer in Destiny Udogie, who has yet to return to action after surgery that ended his 2023/24 campaign prematurely, plus Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, who have been on holiday following their respective international exertions at the Copa America tournament and Euro 2024.
"It is fair to say the players were showing the effects of us working hard here for 10 days,” Postecoglou said after the defeat to Bayern. “I think we'll get an enormous benefit from the camp we've done here though, but in this game we perhaps just paid the price for it.
"The really important thing for us was that we got 10 days of really solid training. The guys will feel the benefits of it when we get back because they have trained that much in this weather.
“I know from my time here [in Asia] that it's physically and mentally draining. When we get back we'll have a two-week period to freshen them up.
"Pre-season is about getting prepared for the season. We didn't have Destiny Udogie and we haven't had three of our back four for all of pre-season. What's important is the training. As far as I'm aware you don't get points for friendly games."
