Ange Postecoglou made Tottenham intentions very clear and no one should be shocked

Tottenham slipped to a 20th Premier League defeat of the season on Sunday, losing 2-0 to Crystal Palace.

It was Spurs' ninth home defeat of the campaign and now means they have lost more matches in a season than any other Tottenham team in Premier League history.

They are guaranteed to finish with their lowest ever points tally - no matter what happens in their final two games against Aston Villa and Brighton & Hove Albion and could yet finish just one place above the relegation zone.

It has been an atrocious Premier League campaign and had the bottom three not been so far adrift, things could have got really uncomfortable for Spurs.

As it is, they have been able to concentrate on the Europa League in the last few weeks and that has been evident in their team selections.

Centre-back duo Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven have not been used in Premier League matches, being saved instead for Europa League outings. Destiny Udogie, Pedro Porro, Rodrigo Bentancur, Lucas Bergvall, Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke have all had times sat on the bench in the Premier League as Ange Postecoglou has rotated his squad.

He did so against Palace, making eight changes from the side that beat Bodo/Glimt in the Europa League semi-final second leg on Thursday. And two Ebere Eze goals sent Spurs to another defeat in which the home side only managed one shot on target.

It sent the 60,000 or so paying fans home unhappy once again. But there is a Europa League final against Manchester United in Bilbao to look forward to. And all focus is on that.

Postecoglou said as much in his rousing dressing room speech in Norway on Thursday.

In amongst his emotional speech, the Australian said: "Now we have just under two weeks to prepare. Every day is important. Every day, every training session, every game we have between now and then is about getting ready for that big game."

Between that Bodo/Glimt clash and the United final are two Premier League matches. One on Sunday which turned out to be a defeat to Palace and one on Friday against Aston Villa.

Postecoglou's speech all but wrote off those two matches, admitting the focus was on the Bilbao contest. So we should not be shocked by what happened in N17 on Sunday.

However, 60,000 people did not get free tickets, they had to pay their way at one of the most expensive clubs in the Premier League and they deserve so much better.

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