Winning things, here? At Tottenham Hotspur? That’s just not who we are, “mate”. On your way. For Spurs’ rivals, the last 17 years had provided a script of endless comedic value – so maybe the final scene had to go something like this.
Ange Postecoglou, the coach who ended decades of misery and frustration, is gone, the latest victim of an antediluvian approach to running a football club that jerks from reaction to reaction.
For when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. They had choices as to how to rectify a horrendous domestic season; they could have embarked on a serious restructuring of their scouting and recruitment systems, bolstered by the potential return of director of football Fabio Paratici and other major changes on the board.
They could have invested properly, not in youngsters, but in proven talent in key, long-neglected positions. They could have shaken up the wage structure to attract elite players.
Instead they chose, as they always do, to sack the manager.
Postecoglou won Spurs their first trophy in 17 years (Photo: Getty)Daniel Levy is entitled to conclude that 22 league defeats and finishing one place above the relegation zone cannot be tolerated. The question was ultimately whether Spurs’ league form was a better indication of where they are as a club than a successful cup run. He decided it was. Others will view that call as unforgivably short-sighted and blind to the bigger issues at play.
The problem is that so often, this has been a club OK on diagnosis, but weak on prescription. The next incumbent can only succeed if the ingredients are there – by a roundabout route, Spurs will play Champions League football next season, which will only be sustainable or remotely enjoyable if they have a squad with the depth to cope with it.
Postecoglou dealt with an unprecedented injury list and like so many before him, was never truly backed to take Tottenham to the next level. Yet unlike most of his predecessors, he turned them into European champions. He promised trophies and exhilarating football and that is what they got.
The great Spurs managers are remembered not for their Plan Bs and it is unfair to suggest Postecoglou was incapable of adapting his style – he showed that throughout the Europa League campaign. More Ange-wall than Angeball, an antidote to the anti-football of Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte.
That his tactics were depicted as entirely gung-ho is partly down to the Australian himself, his soundbites, and his being content to throw his pawns forward knowing full well the queen would be taken. He said as much after the final victory over Manchester United, when he confessed he had effectively sacrificed the league position in pursuit of the trophy.
However contrite he looked after every league defeat, he could see the fabric of his project unravelling and was either unable or unwilling to stop it.
Whether, as he promised, season three would have been better than season two, we will never know. That momentum has been shattered.
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It is the job of a chairman to make the big decisions, but history does not always look back on them kindly. Like Postecoglou, Mauricio Pochettino was sacked in 2019 for a long-standing league demise that a European final could not sugarcoat. Many still believe that was a mistake from which Spurs have never fully recovered.
Levy can learn from those errs in judgment but cannot be swayed by fan sentiment alone – not least because football supporters are a fickle breed. Take, for example, bickering openly with a manager one minute as he brazenly cups his ear towards them, and relentlessly serenading him the next.
The decision to sack Postecoglou will not be universally unpopular – he divided opinion like few other Premier League managers – but it will start a sizable backlash against Enic’s ownership that will tarnish the start of any new dawn.
Spurs are fortunate that they are still capable of luring a manager as well-respected as Thomas Frank, if they are indeed to appoint the Brentford boss. He has a tough act to follow, for though Postecoglou’s ideas were not that radical, what he achieved was radical. He also, uniquely among their managers in the last five years, seemed to understand Tottenham and what the club means to so many people.
Steadying the club’s league form is one thing. It is hard to imagine any successor bettering the highs of Bilbao, or parading along the streets of north London on an open-top bus as hundreds of thousands sing his name.
When the confetti had settled and all that was left were empty Stella cans crushed into the pavement, an eery quiet descended on the end of that trophy parade. The party was over – what would come next?
By letting the air out of the balloons and deflating the positive mood and winning mentality that had finally permeated the club, the future suddenly looks a little bleaker.
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