For the third time this season, Ange Postecoglou spent the international break simmering down a rotten result.
In September, Postecoglou had a fortnight to sit on Tottenham’s first defeat of the campaign – Newcastle’s smash-and-grab at St James’ Park.
The following month, the head coach had no time to dress up his outgoing internationals after Spurs collapsed 2-0 to lose 3-2 at Brighton.
And over the past fortnight he has reflected on the sluggishness against Ipswich, Spurs’ second defeat to a previously winless club following the 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace.
Among these bad results, however, there are good ones. Spurs won 3-0 at Manchester United and scored four times at home to Everton, West Ham and Aston Villa.
They knocked Manchester City out of the Carabao Cup and won three of their four Europa League matches.
The start of Postecoglou’s second season has been wildly inconsistent, with his team vacillating between exceptional and atrocious.
After 11 matches, Spurs sit average in the Premier League table, with five wins and five defeats.
Optimists see a team developing, devastating in bursts. Pessimists see a fundamentally flawed team, likely to lose even when playing well.
As Postecoglou prepares for his 50th league game in charge of City, it is difficult to get a sense of Angeball’s prospects.
Are Spurs progressing towards the fight for the biggest trophies, as the head coach thinks? Or are they destined to remain entertaining but unserious, unlikely to claim honors under Postecoglou and their current ownership?
Angel who divides
Postecoglou shares the opinion, although he is clearly supported by a vocal majority of Spurs fans in the match.
He is puritanical in his style of play, believing that his high-octane football is the best path to success.
Naturally, there are skeptics and every poor Spurs result has sparked a referendum on Angeball’s merits, wondering whether Postecoglou is simply too inflexible to replicate his successes in Australia, Japan and Scotland in the Premier League.
“Is it time to be more pragmatic? Teams that win trophies have strong defenses and attacks,” Postecoglou asked during the club’s Fan Forum in September.
“You’re right, buddy, but it won’t be us,” he replied.
Postecoglou has heard these doubts before at previous clubs and believes Spurs’ inconsistency, fallibility at set pieces, clumsy finishing and immaturity are all part of his team adapting and mastering his football. players.
He was sometimes slow to use his bench, while some selections were confusing. Postecoglou, however, subtly tweaked his tactics: Dejan Kulusevski moved to midfield and became Spurs’ best player; full-backs Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro remain wider; and Spurs were more direct with Dominic Solanke up front.
Postecoglou will still retain his non-negotiables – frontal pressing, a high defensive line and dominant possession – but he is not beyond adapting.
Influence of the sample
This week marked the fifth anniversary of Mauricio Pochettino’s sacking and his shadow still hangs over the club.
If every Tottenham fan had erased their memory of the decade before Postecoglou, it’s easy to imagine there would be even more optimism about the present.
Supporters would only see an ambitious manager, playing entertaining football and building a young and exciting team. As things currently stand, part of the fanbase doubts
Daniel Levy, the president, knows what it will take to win. Hugo Lloris, the club’s former captain, fueled this perception of Levy in his new autobiography, saying the president’s behavior ahead of the 2019 Champions League final had left himself, Pochettino and Harry Kane wondering : “Does the club really want to win?
Despite all the remarkable progress made under Levy – including that final in Madrid and the move to their magnificent stadium – they have won just one trophy in 23 years under ENIC ownership, the 2008 League Cup, and supporters became impatient for commercial success. to be translated in the field.
The problem for Postecoglou is that they have already been through this building process and feel burned by the way Pochettino’s tenure ended – and the club’s disastrous pivot to now gaining managers Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte – which has eradicated so much good will.
Many supporters saw this summer’s transfer window, when Spurs signed Solanke for £55 million but otherwise added just three teenagers to the squad, as an example of the club’s reluctance to buy the ready-made players needed to compete at the highest level.
This problem is most evident in an emerging disconnect between supporters and club over domestic cups.
Postecoglou will not prioritize a quick fix by doing everything possible to end Spurs’ trophy drought and instead aims to build a team capable of competing year in and year out.
Last month he said progress over a 38-game season is “a better indicator” that Spurs are going in the right direction than winning a trophy this season.
It’s probably fair to say that most Spurs fans, on the other hand, would now sign up for a mid-table place if it meant winning one of the cups, and fear, rightly or wrongly, that Levy would prefer finish at the top. -four and secure Champions League football than lifting a trophy.
Comparisons between Liverpool and Arsenal
Despite Postecoglou’s fervent confidence in his approach, his rhetoric has seemed to subtly change of late, suggesting that he has realized that his project may be slower than he had initially anticipated.
In April, Postecoglou said he expected Spurs to be in a title race this year, and he made headlines in September by insisting he “always” wins a trophy during his second season at a club.
After the defeat to Palace, however, he looked more like a manager calling for patience and comparing Spurs to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.
These comparisons are valid; after 50 games, Klopp had won 92 points and Arteta 72, with Postecoglou sandwiched between the two, with 82 points in one game less.
But Arteta had already won the FA Cup and Klopp had reached two finals, while both clubs were having a go; in games 51 to 100, Arteta won 99 points and Klopp 98.
For these comparisons to continue to ring true, Postecoglou’s Spurs need to start being more consistent and, ideally, reach a cup final or two.
And then?
Beat City on Saturday and Spurs will move to within four points of the champions and the mood will return to optimism.
Spurs may have made a shaky start, but there are opportunities in this crowded top flight, in which only Liverpool have found consistency, despite being among the Europa League favorites.
Postecoglou was right when he said he always won something in his second season at a club – a record that shouldn’t be discarded. But the main thing is that his project looks like a medium-term business.
Two more teenagers will join Postecoglou’s squad in 2025, and for all the manager’s insistence that Spurs are building a team to compete now and in the future, this looks like an attempt by the club to have the cake and eat it.
Levy, meanwhile, is publicly seeking a minority investor to inject capital into the club – a move that could boost Spurs’ transfer power.
In the meantime, Postecoglou will remain steadfastly true to his path, doubters be damned, and strive to find more consistency and deliver a trophy to satisfy a somewhat restless fan base.