Manager Watch: Ange Postecoglou

[DCSPUR64]

What a way to come crashing back down to earth. After a nice little run against, admittedly teams we would be expecting to beat, we serve up a reputation affirming performance like that.
I now, feel as if we are no better off under Ange, than we were under Mourinho or Conte. I now can not trust us to beat ANY Good teams. And we will struggle against poor/average teams who are in good form.

At least we are entertaining under Ange, The football JM and AC dished was rubbish.

 

[jolsnogross]

You can see his point about the hapless defending for the 3 goals we conceded. They were all avoidable pretty much until the final hit. And Udogie in particular has had a nightmare there. And a lot of it is mental and just thinking that final ball or strike won't reach the target, so no need to exert yourself. Clownishness we've seen from many a spursy side over the years.

But Ange is out of line suggesting he shouldn't play a role in stopping the match drifting away from us. If someone is shirking responsibility in duals, haul them off. What's the fucking point in just letting it happen to show we deserve it!

And I'm getting tired of Werner. That overhit pass to Johnson in on goal is so unnecessary. He misses every clutch moment. We just care less if we win despite him missing. But he's doing the same shit regardless.

 

[Oh Teddy Teddy]

That Slot chap is doing awfully well !

See how he gets on when they have some actual games. I believe the same was said of us & Ange last season.

 

[Danny1]

I know a couple guys responded to my post about fragile fan base. I stick to by those words. The reaction and response in itself shows the fragility. Doesn't matter how long you have been supporting spurs. This comes with the package of being a spurs fan. I've supported spurs for over 20 years, and I've been patient through that time.

I appreciate others have supported longer then that, but to complain and moan about it, won't change anything either. I choose to stay optimistic and endure the suffering. That's just how I am as a person and patience is everything for me.

If the good times are going to come, I can see Ange being that man to bring it. This season alone, I've seen major improvements game on game in terms of how we attack, yet we are still a work in progress and not the finished article yet.

That second half showing would have taught Ange alot, and I believe he will adapt. He isn't one to admit to the press when he's got it wrong. For e.g. set pieces issues we faced, he kept saying there's not an issue, yet now we look more reassured at them, which shows he adapted and made tweaks, same with the system and how we have been attacking. He's definitely upset by what's happened and I believe he will adapt and make subs sooner going forward.

Yes as annoying as it is to keep saying "trust the process" this is literally what we need to do and enjoy the ride. If shit goes sideways, then so be it. But I for one won't be doom and gloom about things ever.

Great post. Totally agree. The bit I don’t like about this site is where you can see the posters that are just waiting for the “i told you so moment”.

Criticism of yesterday is absolutely fine, but the “fraud”, “Aussie ossie”, “clueless” posts are just ridiculous. We have lost 1 and won 5 of our last 6 games are some people are out here almost baying for blood.

It’s never nice to lose a game in the manner we did yesterday and I have to say I personally think a lot of it was on the players, especially Udogie, Bentancur and Romero. Could Ange have made changes in that 15 minute spell, yes he could be how would this site have acted had we taken Romero and Udogie off for Dragusin and Spence and still lost the game. Everyone here would be losing their shit if that had happened.

Patience is the way forward, as you state above, there have been definite improvements this season in defending (bar today of course) and there has been big improvements in our attack.

We still have the 5th best goal difference in the league so it shows that we are generally getting a lot right but there are still things we need to work on.

Recruitment will be key again in January and the summer where we need to add a couple of experienced heads to this very young side, ideally in central midfield in my opinion.

I generally don’t like the term trust the process as it riles people up, however k just think it’s time we stopped flip flopping managers as that clearly hasn’t worked and let Ange work on this squad for a while. One thing that is massively true since he joined is that I’m enjoying watching us play football for the first time since early 2019 before it all went to shit under Poch.

 

[Mattspurs1982]

Great post. Totally agree. The bit I don’t like about this site is where you can see the posters that are just waiting for the “i told you so moment”.

Criticism of yesterday is absolutely fine, but the “fraud”, “Aussie ossie”, “clueless” posts are just ridiculous. We have lost 1 and won 5 of our last 6 games are some people are out here almost baying for blood.

It’s never nice to lose a game in the manner we did yesterday and I have to say I personally think a lot of it was on the players, especially Udogie, Bentancur and Romero. Could Ange have made changes in that 15 minute spell, yes he could be how would this site have acted had we taken Romero and Udogie off for Dragusin and Spence and still lost the game. Everyone here would be losing their shit if that had happened.

Patience is the way forward, as you state above, there have been definite improvements this season in defending (bar today of course) and there has been big improvements in our attack.

We still have the 5th best goal difference in the league so it shows that we are generally getting a lot right but there are still things we need to work on.

Recruitment will be key again in January and the summer where we need to add a couple of experienced heads to this very young side, ideally in central midfield in my opinion.

I generally don’t like the term trust the process as it riles people up, however k just think it’s time we stopped flip flopping managers as that clearly hasn’t worked and let Ange work on this squad for a while. One thing that is massively true since he joined is that I’m enjoying watching us play football for the first time since early 2019 before it all went to shit under Poch.

Of those 6 games, we had Coventry, Qarabag and Ferencvaros..... (we even got away with it against Coventry and Ferencvaros - while Qarabag missed a hatful of chances). We should be beating the Brentford at home. Yes - United was very impressive.

Seems to be a bit of rose-tinted specs in some quarters. Soon as we face a tough challenge, we fail to win - or even scrape a win (Newcastle away, Brighton away, Leicester away, Arsenal at home). I'm not Ange out btw but he does need to adapt asap.

 

[Metalhead]

What a way to come crashing back down to earth. After a nice little run against, admittedly teams we would be expecting to beat, we serve up a reputation affirming performance like that.
I now, feel as if we are no better off under Ange, than we were under Mourinho or Conte. I now can not trust us to beat ANY Good teams. And we will struggle against poor/average teams who are in good form.

On the other hand, it's a reminder not to get carried away. Yesterday was a wake up call that the team don't have a strong mentality in adversity. Until they do, we will continue to have frequent blips.

 

[Mr Pink]

The worries for me are that Ange is saying it’s down to attitude, complacency and not matching the intensity of the opponents as a minimum (which I do agree with). I would have hoped that, after a year now of him talking about the clubs culture, this kind of thing wouldn’t be present any more. I hoped we were past that and building a new mindset. That our players had shaken off that kind of attitude.

That’s the biggest worry I have. That we are no further along than we were.

The first half was excellent. The second half was awful. I am very concerned that, even in victory we never really control the game.

This is the big concern.

The complacent, or fragile, mindset is still there and we wont truly progress until he changes it.

I was hoping this sort of gut wrenching, typical Tottenham of old, peformance was gone.

If Ange can use this game as the catalyst to really make some big changes with our mentality it could be hugely significant and a blessing in disguise.

A real pity its an international break, as its an opportunity to hammer them for all that yesterday.

He looked lost and dejected at the final whistle but this is the job Ange...now what can you really do to take this Club to the next level....

 

[qqq1]

I think Ange needs to start trusting the kids in league matches. In the league they're getting 15 minutes at most and they're getting longer in games that are already won. We've sold most of our senior squad players and with a couple of injuries we've only got the kids left. There's no point having them in the squad if he's not going to use them when we desperately need to make some changes.

 

[keithtighe93]

I’m so torn.

I really thought at half time that we were on the cusp of a breakout. And then that happens.

Part of me wants to envision a future where we play like that first half all the times, and I’m trying to keep the faith.

The other part of me reads his comments about subs and tactical changes being irrelevant, and it scares me.

Not sure what to think. But that loss has really knocked my confidence/faith and it’s gonna take a while to regain it.

 

[philll]

I seriously dislike his answer about subs and the more I think about it, the less I like it. Sorry to break it to you, Ange (apparently somebody needs to), but your job during any match is to do everything within your power to maximise our chance of winning that match. Saying you didn't make any changes because they're irrevelant, they wouldn't have made a difference and we didn't deserve to win and effectively throwing a match away because he wanted to teach the players a lesson is simply not acceptable. Get over the line and then give the players hell afterwards but ffs get over the line first.

 

[1882andallthat]

Liverpool fans were patient.

Maybe some Liverpool fans are, but Liverpool fans in general in the main are not patient, many of them simply jumped on the bandwagon because they were winning things who have no real connection with the club and swan around wearing their shirts bought from Sport's Direct in places like Barnstaple Bournemouth Brighton, Brimigham Bradford or Basildon et al. They claim to support them because they claim to have some long lost distant relative who is from Liverpool when the real reason they ‘support’ them with support being a misleading term is because they have an inability to defer gratification.

Bandwagon jumping isn’t the definition of patience.

 

[For the love of Spurs]

Maybe some Liverpool are, but Liverpool fans in general in the main are not patient, many of them simply jumped on the bandwagon because they were winning things who have no real connection with the club and swan around wearing their shirts bought from Sport's Direct in places like Barnstaple Bournemouth Brighton, Brimigham Bradford or Basildon et al. They claim to support them because they claim to have some long lost distant relative who is from Liverpool when the real reason they ‘support’ them with support being a misleading term is because they have an inability to defer gratification.

Bandwagon jumping isn’t the definition of patience.

Liverpool fans being more patient than us is one of the most ludicrous comments I have seen on this forum.

They are fans who had big protests against the prior owners, if Levy was at the helm and they had won just 1 LC the last 10-15 years they would have burned Anfield down by now. They have very little tolerance for mediocrity. Klopp was an elite proven manager coming from Germany and got them playing pretty decent pretty quickly, they didn’t have the players for his system but rather than hang Klopp out to dry they got the players to take them to the next level.

If next window we buy the quality of Van Dijk, Alisson, Mane and Fabinho I am pretty sure this Ange project will go into gear. It won’t happen but I don’t see any great movement from fans to remove Ange there is just social media moaning, I think most know replacing the manager doesn’t fix our core issues.

 

[Mr Pink]

I’m so torn.

I really thought at half time that we were on the cusp of a breakout. And then that happens.

Part of me wants to envision a future where we play like that first half all the times, and I’m trying to keep the faith.

The other part of me reads his comments about subs and tactical changes being irrelevant, and it scares me.

Not sure what to think. But that loss has really knocked my confidence/faith and it’s gonna take a while to regain it.

Thats what was so cruel about yesterday.

At HT I was thinking, its really happening we're looking like a top side and last week was the that big moment.

Yes expected a reaction from Brighton second half but that was honestly the most gut wrenching half of football Ive ever witnessed from us.

I just cant understand why theyre so weak when they face some pressure.

 

[ReadieSpur]

The right ideas are there, but if the team needs to grow and learn, so does Ange.

He shouldn't be so arrogant to think that he does not. Spurs and the Premier league are a big step up for him as well, and he can't get away with the same things he did in other leagues.

When you have the opportunity to change half the team during a match, the subs are certainly not irrelevant.

When so many teams in the league have the ability to punish your main tactic again and again, maybe you need to tweak that tactic from time to time.

I hope Ange is willing to learn and that he learns quickly.

 

[Albertbarich]

Im so glad I couldn’t watch.

i was thinking about the club as I was trying not to because I hate losing and I was rolling my eyes at the fallout that there will inevitably be. The constant cycle of told you so from the negative and positive thinking camps depending on the result. When we win , suddenly everything is perfect and anyone who doubts is an idiot and when we lose , of course we did , Ange is clueless it’s all the board and these gutless players.

Emotions I guess.

I came to the conclusion that shock horror I was right all along . The summer window screamed not enough and our results are sort of what you expect for a side that will probably finish top eight and has a semi decent chance of fourth.

The challenge I thought would always come when the games came thick and fast and players started dropping out.

We will be ok. As long as the chairman keeps his nerve with the boss we will have fun watching spurs and win a few and lose a few. The squad isn’t good enough to challenge on all fronts no matter who the manager is.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

We’ve been ridiculously open ever since he started here and it’s not going to change. Even in the matches we’ve won by two or three, we’ve given away some guilt edged chances. It’s no surprise that our record against the better sides under Ange is so poor, because any team with quality attackers will punish us.

 

[Gb160]

Nuno was sacked on 15 points after 10 games. If we don't win 2 of the next 3 PL games i honestly think we are going to see just how committed Levy is to this rebuild / process.

Levy will do whatever it takes to keep the focus off of himself.
If more and more fans start turning, the spotlight points to Levy and he doesn't like that, so he'll pull the old switcharoo and some other bloke on a hiding to nothing will get a crack at the impossible job.

Sacking Ange achieves nothing, it's painting over the cracks.

 

[fecka]

Said as much in the match thread before the game started, that Brighton would be a significantly tougher test than United.
Whether it's the players or Ange, we're soft and are either let down by our defense or the attack on a consistent basis.

Turned off the game after 3-2 because it was clear as day that the whole team, Ange included, was shaken. I half-expected us to concede another two or three seeing how passive and poor we were in the duels.

Also avoided this forum until now to get some space and time for reflection.

It's just so disappointing as hope was on the rise after United, and I believe that might be the reason for many OTT reactions today.

 

[Trix]

On the other hand, it's a reminder not to get carried away. Yesterday was a wake up call that the team don't have a strong mentality in adversity. Until they do, we will continue to have frequent blips.

Mate we have a wake up call at least every couple of weeks. If they haven't woken up by now I think it's fair to say some of them probably never will. I keep saying it but Ange's so called "leaders" aren't leaders at all, they're just senior players who are happy, friendly and nice to have around the squad. They certainly won't drag the team out of the mud as we have seen time and time again.

 

[Metalhead]

See how he gets on when they have some actual games. I believe the same was said of us & Ange last season.

That's a good point - people often have a tendency to focus on the short term these days - players are written off after a bad game, people get overexcited or despondent over individual games. There was no point in getting hyped over the last 3 games or overly depressed after yesterday. It's all a work in progress. When the time comes, the board will decide whether or not to retain Ange's services