He may have led them to Europa League success, but Ange Postecoglou has been sacked by Tottenham Hotspur. Here, we look at why a first trophy in 17 years wasn’t enough to spare him.
Football is a brutal business. Ange Postecoglou may have guided Tottenham Hotspur to their first trophy in 17 years, their first in Europe for 41 years to also secure UEFA Champions League qualification, but he’s reached the end of the road in north London.
Tottenham announced on Friday that the Australian coach had left the club with immediate effect, abruptly ending a two-year reign that initially appeared to promise much.
And some will argue ‘much’ was what it delivered, given Spurs’ flirtations with tangible success since winning the 2008 League Cup were minimal for a club of their size, and Postecoglou was the one to end their drought with Europa League glory in Bilbao a little over two weeks ago.
But that can only count for so much, and there’ll be plenty who feel Spurs’ decision is justified, regardless of the sudden reverence that night in Bilbao earned Postecoglou.
After all, there’s no escaping that Spurs have just played out one of the most baffling seasons you’re ever likely to see.
There was the Europa League success, of course. But they also finished their league campaign in 17th, just one place clear of the relegation zone. It was their worst finish in the Premier League era and their worst in any top-flight season since 1976-77, when they were last relegated.
The thinking before that slender victory over Manchester United was that the domestic campaign had been so dismal that even silverware wouldn’t be enough to save Postecoglou. Widespread reports suggested the decision to sack him had already been made.
The jubilant scenes at the final whistle in Spain and the trophy parade in London hinted at a change in the narrative; many who were convinced Postecoglou was the wrong man for the job suddenly believed he had earned the right to keep it.
Chairman Daniel Levy seemingly wasn’t on that side of the divide, however. And for all the significance of that night in Bilbao, can you really blame him and the board?
“Whilst winning the Europa League this season ranks as one of the club’s greatest moments, we cannot base our decision on emotions aligned to this triumph,” read a segment of the club’s statement.
The chief reasons to get rid of Postecoglou were based around the pretty simple assertion that the team moved backwards under him. There was little evidence he could build a Spurs side capable of competing – as they did consistently under Mauricio Pochettino – at the top end of the Premier League.
His football succeeded in Australia, Japan and Scotland, but flaws were exposed in the harsh world of top-flight football in England. Tottenham scored a lot of goals under him – 64 in the Premier League this season to be precise, which was as many as fourth-placed Chelsea and more than 12 teams – but they shipped goals and chances far too easily.
Only the three relegated teams and Wolves conceded more goals in the Premier League this season than Spurs (63), while only the bottom three allowed their opponents a higher expected goals total than them (64.4 xG). Based on their defensive displays, they fully deserved to finish 17th.
Much of what Postecoglou espoused throughout his time at Tottenham centred around the idea that football should be enjoyable to watch. “Are you not entertained?” he asked Sky Sports following his side’s 4-3 League Cup quarter-final win over United in December, a game in which Spurs had led 3-0 but very nearly threw away.
Approaching matches that way was fine while Spurs were winning, and during his 10-match unbeaten start to life in England at the beginning of 2023-24, he was seen as a breath of fresh air. He won himself a lot of admirers among a fanbase who had grown tired of watching the football of José Mourinho and Antonio Conte.
But when opponents figured Postecoglou’s Spurs out and the gung-ho tactics led to results nosediving, he still stuck to his guns, refusing to change the way his side played, whatever the circumstances. His doing so and then saying things like “it’s just who we are” became a stick to beat him with. And rightly so.
Spurs remained entertaining through his two seasons in the Premier League. There were 3.47 goals per game in Postecoglou’s league matches in charge (264 in 76 games), the highest goals-per-game ratio of any manager to take charge of 50+ games in the competition’s history.
In 2024-25, though, they were mostly fun to watch for the wrong reasons. They continued to score reliably but were just as consistently outscored, and the damning numbers speak for themselves.
They suffered more defeats (22) than any other team that avoided relegation from the Premier League ever has. Their total of 38 points was Tottenham’s lowest in the Premier League era, and would have been low enough to see them relegated in four other seasons, while in three more they would have been saved only on goal difference.
They were very, very fortunate that the three promoted sides in 2024-25 proved to be the worst trio of relegated teams, in points terms, the Premier League has ever seen. That meant relegation was never really a genuine possibility and Postecoglou was able to focus fully on the Europa League, something he has admitted he did since the season ended.
But make no mistake, what everyone saw was a team not cut out for the level they were playing at. Spurs were outplayed and beaten by plenty of teams they have much greater resources than and were expected to beat. They alone were responsible for two of the six (33.3%) away wins that relegated trio Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton recorded, for example.
Postecoglou complained for much of the season about the injuries his squad suffered, and there’s no doubt the many absences had a big impact on results. Through the middle part of the season, they were consistently without a full team of players, and the club accepted in their statement that there were “extenuating circumstances”.
But there is also the question of whether Postecoglou’s insistence on playing his relentlessly high-intensity brand of football was in some way to blame for their injuries. His players were asked to put in more physical effort than most of the rest of the top flight, with Spurs ranking either second or third in the Premier League this season for distance covered (111.5 km per 90), sprints (167.5 per 90), off-ball runs (159.0 per 90) and pressures in the final third (55.2 per 90). This is a topic we covered in more depth during the height of their injury crisis earlier this year.
Questions over whether Postecoglou’s football is suited to the demands of the Premier League alongside a European schedule have therefore persisted throughout the season. If – as evidence suggests – he was unwilling to budge on his tactics in league games (he did adapt in the Europa League but has spoken openly about his view that cup competitions deserve to be approached differently), then there was little to suggest he could take this Spurs team back to the upper echelons of the Premier League. Postecoglou’s Tottenham were just too easy to beat.
The case for sacking him, in its simplest terms, was that Spurs couldn’t continue with a manager who’d just overseen such a terrible league campaign, because if 2025-26 was to be even half as bad, it would still be a long way off acceptable.
“The board has unanimously concluded that it is in the best interests of the club for a change to take place. Following a positive start in the 2023-24 Premier League (PL) season, we recorded 78 points from the last 66 PL games. This culminated in our worst-ever PL finish [in 2024-25],” their statement added.
In the end, the club were led by the data rather than vibes, and it’s difficult to argue with the numbers.
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