I didn't feel like answering earlier, for obvious reasons. For me, Everton away sent an awful message and that's when, personally, I gave up on Postecoglou. We were all over the place and it looked like the players had no idea at all what they were supposed to be doing.
And yet, absolutely nothing happened after such an abysmal performance, even though Postecoglou was supposed to be under pressure. I thought he was toast after such an abject showing and I'm willing to bet I wasn't the only one.
After that match, it became clear that it was ok to lose a league game. He didn't do anything crazy and on paper, the team was sent out to fight for a result but it was just one loss after the other.
For me - and it's just my opinion - there's two things in football you can't come back from: a manager telling his players he won't be there next season (because the players immediately stop giving 100%, as they know he won't be calling the shots in the long run) and telling the players the next match isn't as important as the following one.
At this level, football is a matter of very small margins and you can't let a player think that giving 95% or shying away from a 50-50 tackle or header, and hope to get away with it. Losing became normal but we just shrugged it off and thought it was because we were focusing on the Europa League. Turns out, it wasn't that simple. Losing can quickly become a habit.
What's worse, it created a fracture between the players and the fans. Postecoglou was clever to use that to build the closest thing to a siege mentality at a club like Spurs but once he was gone, the divide only grew bigger. The players rejected the new manager, the fans rejected the new manager and then the players and there's good reason to think that the same process is underway with the new new-manager.
The man you call a winner is, in my opinion, a big factor in our current predicament. Yes, he did win a trophy, but he burnt the house down in order to do that, such was his personality polarising. In contrast, Juande Ramos did a poor job but he left a manageable squad. Having said that, I would hire Postecoglou back now because I believe he's the only one who might get something out of this squad.
Fair enough. I’ve seen you mention the Everton game before and I must admit I don’t recall it the same way you do. I remember it being in the midst of the horrible run (in terms of results, fixture congestion and injuries), we had just lost Brennan for 6 weeks and then we lost Solanke just before this game. It was also Moyes second home game back. If you look at our bench that day, Richy is the only one who isn’t a kid.
I remember it as Ange trying something different to try and stem the tide with a 3 at the back, precisely because losing so much wasn’t acceptable to him, but then turning in a bad first half with the players not used to a different system, and reverting to normal for the second and scoring 2 goals to lose 3-2.
If that’s your example of Ange normalising losing I think I’d respectfully disagree and say it’s unfair. I don’t think he burnt the house down to win the trophy. But I do think he is a big factor in our current predicament. Because I don’t recall a club like ours, going through a situation like that, actually winning a rare trophy at the end of it and then sacking the manager.
I think if we were going to sack Ange, the next appointment after had to be unquestionably, so obviously a level up, with both a personality, style of play, and tactical nous that the players fully bought into it, accepting that Ange needed to go for their greater good. And if that person didn’t exist, they should have let it ride with Ange. Because the players were still behind him, and the moment someone not up to the job like Frank gives them any reason to doubt him, their minds go back to the fact that the club sacked a manager that took them through the hardest season of their lives, promised they would become winners, and then made it happen.
I think sacking Ange destroyed the culture and let the players feel like Tottenham was a pointless endeavour for them, because nothing would really change, no matter what they achieved in whatever circumstances. And I think that’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing right now. A complete lack of culture. We simply had to let it ride with Ange and if he started the next year badly, sack him then.
I think blaming him for creating too good a relationship with the players, and being too successful in the most awful of circumstances is just way off to be honest. Yes he is polarising, but he didn’t start the season saying ‘I’m going to tank the league so I can say I always win things my second year’. He faced horrendous circumstances and still came out the other side with a trophy because that was the only way the season could be a success.
I actually agree with a lot of your analysis, I agree there are massive fractures between the players and the fans. But I don’t blame Ange for doing his job. I blame the club for sacking him and getting the next appointment badly wrong. It simply isn’t usual for a club, especially one like ours who doesn’t win often, to sack a winning manager. It isn’t usual to see the outpouring of love from the players that came after that news broke. We chose to throw that way, for someone the players quickly realised wasn’t up to it. I think that fractured the relationship between the club and the players, because it was so obviously a horrendous decision. The squad likely has no respect for a club that can do something so stupid, and most know they will be able to force their way out this summer. And now we are where we are.
