Manager Watch: Ange Postecoglou

[SpursSince1980]

Two players say that the system is problematic and it would be better to change things

You: “They’re clearly talking about the weather”

Yep, that’s exactly what I said. Merry Christmas to you!

And that’s your interpretation of what they are saying. That doesn’t make it true. Your original comment was saying it was a direct criticism of the system Ange has implemented. I didn’t take it to mean what you said. To me, it was more of a subtle critique on the players needing to adapt better to what they’re facing.
In isolation, I can see why you are adamant that they were publicly criticizing Ange. But if you include everything else they said, it wasn’t so cut and dry as you are making out.

Regardless, you do you.

 

[rossdapep]

Unfortunately Nuno couldnt cope at spurs with the pressure and had a complete breakdown behind the scenes and wasn't talking to anyone or coping. Bringing him into any conversation is a complete waste of time unless you want to glow in hindsight of whats happening at Forest when they currently dont have 10 players unavailable and Johan Lange buying kids for them in the windows

It was really crap timing on his part and our part.

We needed a coach that could galvanise the team and provide some energy in an attacking sense.

Nuno clearly needed a break at Wolves and had come off the back of a really challenging season.

I was one of a very few who felt he could have done okay here and that he can be quite attacking at times (his Wolves team always gave us and City a game).

But the bigger issue was that the timing was absolutely horrendous for both us.

Therefore, I'm really glad that he's come through it and is doing well.

It's really not a good reflection on our club. He had to have felt he was 6th or 7th choice amd was immediately up against it. He was essentially always 1 bad performance away from people calling for him and that United game with the boos were not specifically aimed at him (Lucas sub aside) but had more of an underlining dissatisfaction of what the club were doing.

 

[Trix]

That was smart by Ange as he’s called out the strategy needed from here and so if he gets delivered more young future prospects you know he’s not being backed.

I know through family members of some our our coaching staff that they were pissed off they just got young hopefuls in the summer (Solanke being the exception) as they know they needed more.

Sadly I don’t see us getting any real upgrades in January.

Can't wait to see Anges face when 2 35yo+ free transfer players arrive on January 31st.

Levy: "I'm confused Ange I thought you said you needed more experience".........

 

[rossdapep]

So winning the champions league by drawing every match and winning on penalties is a big no for you.
You are basically telling me you don’t care about results. You just want to see goals.

I get the idea of entertainment and goals, but surely winning comes first.

Literally impossible to do that. You wouldn't get out the group stages.

You've picked out a really extreme scenario, that isn't even really plausible as your side of the argument.

I think we'd all take winning a trophy over good football and not winning.

But the reality is that when you draw and play boring football in a competition, you are always one goal away from getting knocked out and then thinking "that wasn't fun" or "we showed no ambition on the pitch".

This play boring but win vs play all out attack but lose theory doesn't really work.

Look at Arsenal. Are they any closer to winning this season after adopting a Stoke like strategy?

 

[Styopa]

Yes, thats how I remembered it

But to say his rant had no inference towards being critical of the owernship at all is laughable.

It absolutely did

Yeah completely agree. I’m sure it was aimed mainly at the ownership.

At the end of the day, we’ve had about eleven managers and hundreds of players since 2001, and one man who has presided over it all.

I’m not sure whether Ange is the right or wrong man but it doesn’t matter at this point. Ange, like Conte, Mourinho, Nuno, AVB, Sherwood, Redknapp, Jol, and even Poch won’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. There’s only really one man who matters.

 

[Ossie85]

Literally impossible to do that. You wouldn't get out the group stages.

You've picked out a really extreme scenario, that isn't even really plausible as your side of the argument.

I said drawing and then winning on penalties, so I'm talking about the knockout stages. You don't have penalties in the group stage.
Last year Copa Libertadores had Boca drawing every single match of the knockout stages and advancing on penalties up to the final where they ended up losing on extra time. I had that example in my head when I wrote that phrase.

I think we'd all take winning a trophy over good football and not winning.

But the reality is that when you draw and play boring football in a competition, you are always one goal away from getting knocked out and then thinking "that wasn't fun" or "we showed no ambition on the pitch".

This play boring but win vs play all out attack but lose theory doesn't really work.

Look at Arsenal. Are they any closer to winning this season after adopting a Stoke like strategy?

Playing one game for a boring draw doesn't mean you will play that way every single match. If the rival is significantly better like last game, I rather we play smart and try to cancel all of their strenghts. If the rival is similar or worse, then we can go an impose our style.

 

[mil1lion]

no point in signing players for ange, dont see him being her for long. in any case, we could have had the 11 best ange players in the world + subs and we still would have lost against liverpool because the other manager is way smarter and tactically on a different planet
merry christmas

Signings have always been club signings. Very few are specific to a manager. You just need to have some sort of football philosophy which you stick to with each manager. As long as we don't go back to Conte ball again for example it's fine. Every manager inherits players and players always have to adapt to new managers (including adapting to international football and the different systems).

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

It's clear he builds from the front, but I think we need to cut the team some slack in the last few games (where we've conceded a lot more than we have this season, chances too).

Yes and no mate, definitely injuries and tired legs are affecting us but we’ve conceded quite a few chances in pretty much every game since Ange took over, it’s just a by product of the gung ho style of play.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

We had the third best defensive record in the league before the Liverpool game. If put that last one down to the fatigue.

Yes and no, sure in terms of number of goals conceded by I’ve watched us play and we’ve seriously ‘got away with it’ in certain games where we could and should have easily conceded a lot more than we did.

Tiredness plays a part but these big score lines conceded have been on the cards for a while tbh.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Signings have always been club signings. Very few are specific to a manager. You just need to have some sort of football philosophy which you stick to with each manager. As long as we don't go back to Conte ball again for example it's fine. Every manager inherits players and players always have to adapt to new managers (including adapting to international football and the different systems).

Yea this is the one saving grace of having Ange is that if we keep signing players like he has done then pretty much any modern balanced or attacking coach will have a good squad to work with, the issue was Jose and conte liked signing aging plodders who were had to then spend ages shifting.

 

[Albertbarich]

Yea this is the one saving grace of having Ange is that if we keep signing players like he has done then pretty much any modern balanced or attacking coach will have a good squad to work with, the issue was Jose and conte liked signing aging plodders who were had to then spend ages shifting.

I’m obsessed with us going 352 or 3412 in modern money. It suits absolutely everyone apart from maybe Odabert in the squad and even he can play centrally.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

I’m obsessed with us going 352 or 3412 in modern money. It suits absolutely everyone apart from maybe Osabert in the squad and even he can play centrally.

That would suit this squad very well but I don’t think Tottenham are really a 3 at the back team in our identity tbh. I’d rather we signed some actual full-backs, a proper CDM, a top class AM/WF and a reliable back up striker then the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 works perfectly

 

[Wearegoingtowintheleague]

Two players say that the system is problematic and it would be better to change things

You: “They’re clearly talking about the weather”

Can you post the quotes where the two players said the system was problematic and it would be better to change things? I mean the actual quotes rather than made up quotes like the inaccurate stats you were called out on.

 

[Kirito]

Can you post the quotes where the two players said the system was problematic and it would be better to change things? I mean the actual quotes rather than made up quotes like the inaccurate stats you were called out on.

The stats were corrected, they’re still bad, I’m not sure why you’re mad about that.

Kulu quotes are in this thread, the video is in this thread. Go watch it.

Solanke said after the Utd game that we should have slowed the game down at 3-0, killed time etc. That’s not the way we play is it, we never employ these tactics.

If you have two players saying that things should have been done differently two games in a row, does that tell you anything?

 

[Misfit]

I’m obsessed with us going 352 or 3412 in modern money. It suits absolutely everyone apart from maybe Osabert in the squad and even he can play centrally.

The irony is we just about finally have a set of defenders and WBs Conte could work with. 24 months too late of course.

 

[allatsea]

Signings have always been club signings. Very few are specific to a manager. You just need to have some sort of football philosophy which you stick to with each manager. As long as we don't go back to Conte ball again for example it's fine. Every manager inherits players and players always have to adapt to new managers (including adapting to international football and the different systems).

Need to do a Brighton or Brentford. By all means change Managers/Head Coaches but always go for ones that play more or less the same system.

 

[Wearegoingtowintheleague]

The stats were corrected, they’re still bad, I’m not sure why you’re mad about that.

Kulu quotes are in this thread, the video is in this thread. Go watch it.

Solanke said after the Utd game that we should have slowed the game down at 3-0, killed time etc. That’s not the way we play is it, we never employ these tactics.

If you have two players saying that things should have been done differently two games in a row, does that tell you anything?

Okay. I'll post what he actually said for you:

Solanke said:
"Being 3-0 up, we could have dealt with the game better and killed some time, but we made it hard for ourselves.

"But the important thing is we won and we're through.

"That's football sometimes, we stick together. Mistakes are a part of football, we dug in, we showed spirit and got the job done.

"Scoring against a team like United is great but the most important thing is to win today and getting to the semi-final."

I can't see anywhere in there where he said the system was problematic and it would be better to change things as you suggested.

He simply mentioned killing some time. Better game management is not saying the system is problematic as you claimed.

If you also watch the interveiw with Solanke from a couple fo days ago he says "The way Ange plays suits us, when we get it right we are flying, we just need to do it more often" Going on to say, "it's a great style to play and we just need to build towards that consistency"

I really can't find anywhere the quotes you are suggesting, he said.

 

[cliff jones]

Can't wait to see Anges face when 2 35yo+ free transfer players arrive on January 31st.

Levy: "I'm confused Ange I thought you said you needed more experience".........

Welcome Ashley!

Spurs raid Everton to snap up evergreen winger turned full back- Djed goes the other way in an ambitious move by the new Toffees owners

It's thought that Ange could also use the former United star as cover for stuttering 50m signing Johnson

 

[Monkey boy]

Is it really ‘lazy media trolling’ or simply some statistics that show our defensive work is currently terrible, whatever the context may be.

I’m from the school of thought that defending is a team responsibility so even if we are missing our entire back 5 then the reality is we would likely be posting those figures regardless of who is on the pitch as to get in to those areas means the attack and midfield has already been breached which is entirely tactical

 

[C1w8]

I said drawing and then winning on penalties, so I'm talking about the knockout stages. You don't have penalties in the group stage.
Last year Copa Libertadores had Boca drawing every single match of the knockout stages and advancing on penalties up to the final where they ended up losing on extra time. I had that example in my head when I wrote that phrase.


Playing one game for a boring draw doesn't mean you will play that way every single match. If the rival is significantly better like last game, I rather we play smart and try to cancel all of their strenghts. If the rival is similar or worse, then we can go an impose our style.

All the hypotheticals people draw up as if its a choice between them don't really illustrate anything. At the end of the day there's no guarantee of winning whichever "type" we go with, pragmatic/not entertaining or more aggressive/front foot, neither types of approach offer any kind of guarantee so many fans (myself included) would rather roll the dice with the latter and see where that gets us.

Has Ange been all that we hoped he would be in the last 18months, with the results that we wanted? I think the majority would say no, to varying degrees of how far off we are. There are many who dont want to get back on the managerial carousel just yet though, and for me i'd like to see us to push on with a project for longer than 18 months. For some this is more than sufficient time to expect to see more than we're seeing (in the context of injuries and our transfer strategy) but for me its not.

Hopefully we as a club, Ange and the players figure this out as we still have a lot to play for this season if we can weather the storm and get some players back (and hope they stay back!).