After ten games of the 2023/24 Premier League season, Tottenham Hotspur had hailed Ange Postecoglou as their lord of the interior.
The Australian had found a club in shambles after a four-year spell in which Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte preceded him. With the promise of a new era based on a unique and entertaining style of play, Spurs surrendered to Postecoglou, his grappling gift and first-hand results.
Four games into the 2024/25 campaign, Ange-mania feels like a fever dream from yesteryear.
Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at home to Arsenal in the characteristic North London derby this recent stretch of Postecoglou’s mandate. Although Spurs were easy to see and dominated the ball, they rarely got it into dangerous areas and were too predictable at both ends.
It was an all-too-familiar story, both under this management and in the club’s modern history. So much promise, so little delivery and “conviction” as the Spurs boss put it.
Speaking to the press after the match, Postecoglou cut a particularly gray figurereaffirming that he ‘always’ wins trophies in his second season with a club.
The problem is that he is currently in charge of Tottenham.
what is success Tottenham? At this stage of ENIC’s ownership, it is definitely delivering silver. Wednesday’s trip to Coventry City in the third round of the Carabao Cup is a must – every game in a domestic trophy will be.
But Spurs are no longer as good as some of their predecessors, the best teams that preceded them and still went without a pot. What was once an idiotic joke to antagonize the fans has become the monkey the club can’t get off its back. It’s a big team that doesn’t win trophies anymore.
What have they won? What have they won? What have they won? What have they won?
Tottenham, strangely similar to England, have reached a point where winning a trophy would be like removing a tumor from the body. The fan base has been conditioned to reject the notion of treatment and cure, but clings to the wistful belief of freedom. It’s much easier to want to start again and again and again than to try to reach a natural end.
A freer existence awaits only after this process is complete.
Meanwhile, Spurs are trying to break through the glass ceiling they’ve struggled to re-position themselves under in recent years. Let’s try to visualize it.
|
level |
Description |
clubs |
|---|---|---|
|
Level 1 |
Title challengers with potential to win the Champions League |
Man City, Arsenal |
|
Level 2 |
Outside group of title challengers with potential to enter Tier 1 |
Liverpool |
|
Level 3 |
Consolidated teams with potential for the Champions League |
Tottenham, Chelsea, Man Utd |
|
Level 4 |
Newly dominant teams looking for long-term deployment |
Newcastle, Aston Villa, West Ham |
This is the simple breakdown of the table – and it’s just rooted in subjective theory, I encourage people to get angry if they disagree – but it’s also important to give context.
Manchester City is richer than God and has the greatest manager of all time at the helm. Unless they are sanctioned for 115 potential breaches of Premier League rules, it is difficult for Tottenham to realistically compete.
Arsenal and Liverpool are perhaps the models that other clubs should look to and aspire to recreate: an extended period of competitiveness built around identity, rational recruitment and gradual improvement. The extra kick in Tottenham’s teeth is that the pair have outplayed and lapped them, again the sinking feeling of paradoxical resignation seeps in again.
While Spurs have closed the financial gaps of those clubs, they remain without the legacy and heritage of two of the most successful football teams in the world. This is another consideration against them with the other teams grouped in tier three, Chelsea and Manchester United.
What he considered the success of Mauricio Pochettino’s era was his ability to break through the glass ceiling, teetering Tottenham between tiers one and two for most of his reign.
Postecoglou’s team is in a state not very different from the same moment in Pochettino’s tenure. He too was maligned and doubted after losing to Arsenal in September of his second season.
Unlike Pochettino at the time, Postecoglou has made no secret of his desire to not only win trophies, but league titles with Tottenham. It’s the most ambitious task of his storied career to date, and one he sees as part of his mission, otherwise he wouldn’t be at N17.
It would be a bit disrespectful to completely hesitate and leave Postecoglou out given his work around the world. Speaking at The Athletic’s The View From The Street podcast, journalist Vince Rugari – author of Postecoglou’s biography – stressed that he has always overcome the hump that currently baffles Tottenham.
Postecoglou should not be defined by the quick, albeit naïve, football his teams play, but by the success that comes after solving problems. Of course, he has never managed a competition like the Premier League until now, but he has earned the right to manage one of its leading teams, such has been the overwhelming glory that has followed him around the world.
It is hard to believe, to stomach and to digest after such a defeat in a derby. Throw in Spurs’ signature pessimism and it’s effectively impossible to predict.
But, as Postecoglou said in his press conference on Tuesday, “every game is an opportunity to follow this path to success.” Now just imagine him saying that in his husky voice and distinct accent instead of David Brent. There is the Spurs paradox again.
