The Europa League is essentially no more than a support act to the main event. Indeed, its greatest value lies in the qualification for the Champions League it controversially confers upon the winners.
For him, everything it seems. Well it would when your job is on the line and the bookies are laying odds on the candidates to replace you. Thus was Postecoglou deep in the trenches following the semi-final victory over Bodo/Glimt, visiting existential rage upon those who would question the validity of cup success in the context of a pitiful Premier League campaign in which Tottenham have caved 19 times and sit 16th.
“I’ve said it before, mate, Spurs does crazy things to people. You put that club into any sentence or any issue, and invariably they all come out and try and diminish as much as they can.”
"Why do I care what Man Utd think?!"
Ange Postecoglou wants to concentrate on his Spurs team, and their focus, ahead of the Europa League final
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He wants the victories in Bodo and Frankfurt to be seen as the version of Spurs that expresses the best of him and his team. This, of course, requires us to set aside the more telling evidence of a long campaign in the Premier League during a season in which a team good enough to finish fifth a year ago has demonstrated a different, more brittle side of itself.
United are working through their own neurosis. Five ex-players sitting in a room, three from United, four men, one woman, all debating what winning the Europa League might constitute for United. Yes it’s The Overlap, just one of Gary Neville’s many endeavours, a talking shop that gives a sacred centrality to football.
There is something about United, argues Neville, that no matter how bad they might be “they are always in for trophies”.
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“Not the right trophies,” Keane says. “You want to be able to compete week in week out. This United team can’t compete. You can’t win the league but it’s ok to be 15th? Losing 15 league matches, it’s a disgrace.”
United and Spurs have advanced in a hybrid competition contested by teams that do not have anywhere near the Premier League’s prestige or power. Bodo have barely fourth tier infrastructure. Winning it thus reflects where the finalists stand vis-a-vis the quality of the competition, just as sitting 15th and 16th is a measure of their quality in the Premier League.
This is the pitiless reality pressing down on Postecoglou. No matter how loudly he protests, the Europa League is neither a front rank pot, nor an indicator of future success. It is a knockout competition in which the random variable has a greater influence than it does in the top flight. The Premier League shows what Spurs are about and that condemns him.
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