Gareth Bale has said Tottenham experienced some “minor teething issues” in their first match under interim manager Ryan Mason as they came from behind to defeat Southampton in the Premier League on Wednesday.
Mason became the youngest manager in Premier League history when he took charge of his former team at the age of 29 in Spurs’ first match since the sacking of Jose Mourinho on Monday.
The former Spurs midfielder has been appointed manager until the end of the season and will oversee the Carabao Cup final against Manchester City on Sunday as the club look to win their first trophy since 2008.
Forward Bale was restored to the Spurs line-up for Mason’s first match in charge after struggling for game time under Mourinho this season.
It was just the Welshman’s seventh Premier League start of the campaign and he responded by scoring the equaliser in the 2-1 win after Spurs had trailed at half-time.
“Southampton came at us and pushed hard first half, we’ve only had a couple of days with the new manager to try and do some things so it’s going to take some time,” Bale told Sky Sports.
“But we had a good chat at half-time about what we could improve and we did that second half and controlled the game and deserved the victory.
“[We need to] just to be patient, solve positional issues as a team. We’ve only had a couple of days to work on that so just minor teething issues. We’ll continue to improve for the [Carabao Cup] final at the weekend.”
The match was also Spurs’ first since withdrawing from the Super League on Tuesday, after they had committed to joining the controversial breakaway competition as one of its 12 founding members.
The proposed tournament received a fierce backlash from players, including Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson, Manchester United’s Luke Shaw and Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne.
“Us as players all we have been focussing on is trying to get the new manager to settle in, the matter’s closed as far as I’m concerned,” Bale said.
“It’s not happening so we’re all good we can carry on as normal.”
