Is it good to have a manager who says this?
When things are going right, sure it’s great to be entertained. That’s the point of sports after all. In N17 however, things haven’t been entertaining or good for a while now. Tottenham Hotspur and Ange Postecoglou have dropped to 15th in the table after 22 matches in the Premier League this season.
There’ve been questions being raised for a while now about Big Ange’s fitness to retain his job managing Tottenham. Those questions are getting louder and more numerous by the week now. Especially following a 3-2 defeat at Goodison that could’ve easily been 5-nil.
To paraphrase the great London band The Clash, “Should he stay or should he go now?”
Should Tottenham Keep Ange Postecoglou as Manager
Let’s go back to greener pastures and escape the darkness that is Spurs fandom for a moment shall we?
It’s August and the 2023-24 Premier League season has just started, Tottenham has a new and interesting man at the helm who brings with him a crazy new system. The season gets off to a glorious start with a 10-match unbeaten run and Tottenham atop the Premier League table. Ah, isn’t that refreshing to think about? That is, after all, what the “Ange in” fanbase keep harkening back to. They say “see what he can do when he has his players and his system is working? We can be tops in the league.” Yes, at a brief moment in time, Tottenham was the best team in the league and was playing spectacularly entertaining football that was pleasing to the eye.
The conglomerate of fans that want the former Celtic boss to stay, will also point out that Spurs have the most goals scored in the league this season. Not only that, but have one of the highest xGs in the league (for what that’s worth); as well as being dominant on the ball in terms of possession and passing stats as well. If we go back to 2023-24 we’ll see a 5th place finish in the league and a spot earned in Europa League for this season. Ah, he brought Spurs back to Europe fans say. He fulfilled a goal of ours in just year 1 on the job. Can’t argue with that.
What about this season though, are there positives coming from this season that are in his favor? Spurs are a solid showing away from a Carabao Cup final, they’ve beaten Man City, Liverpool, and Man U, and have made easy work of the Europa League. What else could we want as a trophy-starved club but a chance to win a couple of trophies in year 2 of his stead? He did say “he always wins trophies in his second year.” Keeping him allows the club to build on an identity and style he’s brought to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, one that’s been lacking for a while, and brings along an exciting crop of youth players like Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall, Antonin Kinsky, and Wilson Odobert. The stats can back up this argument as well as a team fighting through an injury crisis that’s seen 11 players not be available for recent games.
Will Tottenham Fire Ange Postecoglou as Manager?
Reality can be a cruel mirror. All of that sunshine and rainbows from above has been replaced with the gray sky and gloom synonymous with first thoughts of London. It’s like waiting for the color and life to come back to Pride Rock (how’s that for a 1994 reference?). Since the first 10 games of the Ange era, it’s been abysmal. Just how bad? Here are some stats for the “Ange Out” crowd. In the 50 games between Matchday 11 last year and this Sunday, Tottenham have 24 losses and just 64 of 150 points. Since Matchday 7 of this season, or the last 16 games, Spurs have been 17th or worse in the table.
Here’s the kicker, if you go back to Matchday 11 til now, Spurs have been in relegation form with just 8 points from 12 games. While teams picked to be in relegation at season’s end like Ipswich, Wolves, and Everton have all managed at least a point per game in that span while 2 of those 3 changed managers. Yes, the stats above are great for those who only care about stats and the what could’ve been argument. However, reality, that cruel mirror, is that a Spurs are simply not good enough to compete and a burgeoning on a relegation fight in the final third of the season.
Those who are sturdily in the “Ange In” camp will lean on injuries and a lack of backing from ownership, namely Daniel Levy, as reasons to give more time to Postecoglou. So let’s look at that and see if it holds water. Yes, it’s an indisputable fact that there is a first-team-injury-crisis afoot at Tottenham. But, is it Ange Postecoglou’s fault in the first place? If we go back to his previous stops, all of them had bevies of injuries, including at Celtic where he had 9 first-team players out at the same time.
The difference is that at those stops, even his backups were better than most of the starting 11s in the league. That’s what happens when you land at the highest spending teams in those leagues. News flash, Tottenham isn’t that, nor anywhere close to that, in the Premier League and they won’t be.
The style of play and system Ange Postecoglou employs requires tremendous amount of effort and fitness that only increases as soon as one of the main cogs isn’t in place. Adding increased stress adds more injuries and it starts to cannibalize the team. Injuries happen, yes… the issue though is the specialized players needed to fill the roles. Take Micky Van de Ven, the astonishingly fast CB that allows the high-line to work. When he’s out there’s no equal substitute to put on who will keep the system working as designed. Ange Postecoglou’s refusal to adjust his system and practice style in the face of mounting injuries has led to more and now led to a bench for Spurs of 6 teenagers when playing Everton. The reason Tottenham can’t find players in the January window is because those players don’t exist in the January window.
Ange Postecoglou has been at the helm now for a year and a half and has handpicked players in 4 windows, with potentially one coming in a 5th window this summer. The bulk of the normal and backup starting 11 are his players at this point and they’ve all shown they’re either not good enough for the Premier League or have gotten worse. I can argue that only 2 players on the roster, Bergvall and Gray, have improved and everyone else has regressed. That’s not great is it? Sure there are growing pains with a new system but to be regressing after 18 months and nearly 80 games is a problem.
If we’re talking about Daniel Levy backing the Spurs and Ange Postecoglou well enough, he’s let the money do the talking. Since Ange Postecoglou took the helm, Tottenham has the second-highest spend in the transfer market and the second-highest net spend (when accounting for selling players) in the league. Take a wild guess who’s first… Chelsea. At €420 million Spurs have spent more than all teams not named Chelsea and have nothing to show for it.
Tottenham needs a manager who can deal with not having the highest wage bill and still get results and not one focused on the flashiest football in the world even if it’s getting his players hurt repetitively. If they keep riding the Ange train, Spurs fans will be hopping for a Top-4 finish next year in order have a shot at promotion.
