That was Ange Postecoglou, Tottenham Hotspur manager and longtime defender of the high press, rejoicing with the Sky Sports team following his team’s 4-3 victory Thursday over Manchester United in the Carabao Cup.
The win was tense, edgy and unexpected, with Heung-Min Son’s winner coming in the 88th minute, but Postecoglou was ebullient nonetheless.
“What do you want? Do you want to scramble it in 1-0?” Postecoglou said, laughing. “I know the studio’s probably going into a meltdown over my lack of tactics, but you know what, I love the fact that we go out there and just take it to our positions.”
That’s Postecoglou’s Spurs for you: a do-or-die, forward-thinking group committed to playing their game their way in all situations. When it works for them, as it did Thursday against United, it’s thrilling and earns breathless admiration from global soccer media.
When it doesn’t, though — as it didn’t Sunday against Liverpool, when Postecoglou’s Spurs lost 6-3 — that same media changes its tune.
Last season, The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew was in awe of Postecoglou’s insistence on style and entertainment even in the face of certain defeat. “When Postecoglou holds court, you listen,” he wrote, calling him a “pastor” and celebrating his focus on fan feeling.
On Sunday, Liew took the same blocks he used to build Postecoglou a pedestal and threw them back in his face, calling him “not serious” and accusing his Spurs side of being “divorced from outcomes” for playing aggressive soccer while losing in a blowout.
Liew is hardly alone in his hypocrisy here. The Guardian’s Barney Ronay called Postecoglou “real” and “vindicated” for his methods last December; he called him “wrong, bad and decadent” for the same thing following the loss to Liverpool. TalkSport’s Martin Keown called Postecoglou “striking” a year ago and “an embarrassment” now.
This is the problem, the tightrope that Postecoglou walks every time his Spurs team takes the field. By focusing on playing fun, exciting, and, yes, entertaining soccer at all costs, Postecoglou makes himself equally easy to lionize and criticize. When things go well, he’s a revered iconoclast. When things go poorly, he’s a naive fool.
In reality, Postecoglou is neither. Over the course of a season, his Spurs team plays exactly like what it is: a group of talented (and occasionally world-class) players.
Tottenham’s 6-3 loss to Liverpool had nothing to do with Postecoglou’s insistence on entertainment and everything to do with the fact that Liverpool’s players are exceptional where the Spurs are not.
Because of injuries, Postecoglou’s Spurs are missing 10 of 11 first-team starters. It started 18-year-old Archie Gray in the center of defense and tasked him with marking the Premier League’s finest goalscorer, Mo Salah. It’s no wonder the Spurs allowed six goals. It is a wonder that Spurs managed to score three along the way.
If the media want the Spurs to focus on winning trophies, it must direct its frustration toward Spurs chairman Daniel Levy, a man who has systematically failed to find the right investors to fund Postecoglou’s player needs.
If there’s anything “unserious” or “embarrassing” about the 11th-place Spurs’ current standing in the Premier League, it’s Levy’s lack of investment, not Postecoglou’s dogged commitment to exciting soccer.
He’s doing the best he can with limited resourcing. His best put three goals past the presumed Premier League champions. That’s nothing to quibble with.
Can Spurs improve? Absolutely. Can Postecoglou learn a little more flexibility to help protect his team against stunning outfits like Liverpool’s? Of course.
But the wild swings around his character — driven by an “entertainment over results” subplot that simply doesn’t reflect the Spurs’ reality — must stop. This is a team, and a manager, fighting through one of the Premier League’s most desperate injury crises and managing to win the hearts of neutrals along the way.
Because of Postecoglou’s efforts we are, indeed, entertained. And with wins in short supply thanks to a burned-out team sheet, isn’t that all we can ask of him?
The Spurs will continue their Premier League season Thursday against fourth-place Nottingham Forest.
