Postecoglou says Spurs ‘need to stick to something’ to improve club’s outlook

Ange Postecoglou believes Tottenham must make material changes to their outlook as a club if they are to reach the level of success they crave. The manager, who is fighting to continue into next season, described his job as different to anything he had experienced because of the “weight of things you’re trying to rail against”.

They include the isolation of the post, how the Spurs manager is normally the lone spokesperson for the club, nobody from the hierarchy publicly defending its positions. This echoed the sentiments of some of his predecessors, especially Antonio Conte. Postecoglou did not name names but it is a matter of fact that the chairman, Daniel Levy, almost never gives interviews. The chief football officer, Scott Munn, and the technical director, Johan Lange, are similarly low-profile.

On a related note, Postecoglou considered how media pundits with affiliations to certain clubs will speak up in their favour, creating a more favourable climate for them. With Spurs, it is the opposite, everybody – including former players and managers – piling in on them.

More broadly, Postecoglou suggested that whenever there was a bad season at Spurs, the default move was to change the manager, never mind the amount of positivity which had come before. That, he said, had to change. Postecoglou acknowledged that he would say this – it is plainly in his interests – but he hoped that people could take the point without prejudice.

“I just don’t think it’s about the managers themselves,” Postecoglou said. “I’ve almost lasted two years. It’s pretty good for Tottenham! At some point, the club needs to stick to something. If I say it now it sounds self-serving and defeats the purpose, so maybe not now … but I think that if you want to change the course of your events, you need to change materially a lot of things in terms of the way your outlook is as a club.

“It’s fair to say this year hasn’t worked out but that’s the other thing. We finished fifth last year. In another year, that would have been a Champions League spot. With people, it just doesn’t register. If you have five years at a club and you have maybe one or two disappointing years but you have three really strong years you’d say: ‘I’ll take that.’ But it seems like [at Spurs], you have one good year, you have one poor year and then that’s it. Let’s move on to the next.

“That’s what I accepted so I can’t sit here and say: ‘Woe is me.’ It’s fair to say at the moment I’m not doing a good job of turning that mind-shift around. But I am a fighter. I will continue fighting until told otherwise. As has been rightly pointed out, there’s life after this for everybody, including Tottenham and including me.”

Ange Postecoglou cups his ear after Pape Sarr’s goal which was later disallowed. Photograph: Robin Jones/Getty Images

Postecoglou was frustrated that his ear-cupping celebration towards the Spurs fans after Pape Sarr’s ultimately disallowed goal in Thursday night’s 1-0 defeat at Chelsea became the major talking point, rather than the VAR processes that led to the over-rule. Postecoglou is a sworn enemy of the technology, feeling it is ruining the game. But he recognised the reaction as being very much of a piece with life at Spurs.

“People tend to focus on the internals of Tottenham rather than the externals,” Postecoglou said. “Whether that’s the fan disenchantment – that’s internal. External is what happened with the decisions. It seems like every fight ends up being an internal fight at this club. There’s never any defending of the club or the club defending itself.”

Postecoglou, preparing for Sunday’s game at home to Southampton, was asked how Spurs ought to do that. “By being more vocal,” he said. “I think you hear enough from me. You probably hear too much from me. It doesn’t have to be just from people at the club, either. I hear plenty of people talking and defending other clubs but it seems with Tottenham, wherever there’s a sore there’s a real pile-on to stick a finger in that sore and then we accept our fate.

“In the time I’ve been here, we’ve had two decisions that have gone for us against Liverpool and there has been a national campaign, almost.”

Postecoglou was referring mainly to the reaction that followed the Luis Díaz goal that was mistakenly disallowed by the VAR team in last season’s Premier League fixture at Spurs’s stadium. The other flashpoint came this time out in the Carabao Cup semi-final, first leg, also at Spurs, when Postecoglou’s midfielder Lucas Bergvall was surprisingly spared a second yellow card. He went on to score for 1-0.

“You guys [in the media] know the landscape better than I do but it seems like … I never switch on and hear any sort of strong voice [for Spurs]. The only voice you hear is me. When we’re talking about the bigger clubs, there seems to be a lot more voices. And not always defending them. You need scrutiny and constructive criticism, as well. We definitely get enough of that. But we never get any of the other stuff.”