Sacking Ange Postecoglou is no solution to Tottenham mess - Daniel Levy must invest in players | OneFootball

Spurs can still transform their spiralling season, but must act fast in the transfer market

Tottenham's last meeting with this weekend's opponents Leicester was on the opening day of the season which, if you have been following Spurs week by week, may as well have been another lifetime ago.

Spurs failed to turn dominance into goals, while debutant Dominic Solanke, who had never missed a game for former club Bournemouth, suffered a knock which would sideline him for the next two matches.

This Sunday, Solanke is set to be one of at least eight first-team players missing through injury for Postecoglou in what could genuinely be described as a relegation dogfight against the Foxes, with Spurs 15th in the table and in freefall in the Premier League.

The atmosphere in north London promises to be edgy, and it is easy to imagine an unholy mix of toxicity and apathy taking hold if the hosts do not address a dreadful run of one win in 10 league games.

Most of supporters' frustration is likely to be directed not at Postecoglou or his players but Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman, who was targeted again by the away end again in Sunday's 3-2 defeat to Everton.

Levy claims to have a "very thick skin" for criticism but there is evidence to suggest otherwise and, at the very least, he dislikes being the centre of a scene.

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy (centre) watches on during Sunday’s loss at Goodison Park

Getty Images

In the past, turning on Levy was a sure-fire way for supporters to accelerate the chances of a managerial change but what makes the current situation so sticky for the chairman – and arguably the tightest bind he has faced in 24 years at the club – is that sacking Postecoglou feels unlikely to improve Spurs' dire situation, nor alleviate the heat on the board.

There is every probability, in fact, that it would make things worse on both fronts.

Dismissing Postecoglou now would surely fuel the anger at Levy, particularly given the widespread view that the Australian is the latest manager who has not been sufficiently backed in the transfer market, and be a tacit admission that the club's pivot back to a progressive coach ("We've got our Tottenham back," Levy told fans shortly after Postecoglou’s appointment) had been a failure.

And which leading manager would want the Spurs job at the moment, even if they remain in all three cups?

No new coach would be able to heal their sidelined players and, while Postecoglou and his squad are not beyond blame, Spurs' unrelenting injury problems are the biggest reason for their woeful slump.

Given Levy's history of making reactionary appointments, we can assume he would want a successor to Postecoglou with Premier League experience and more willingness towards pragmatism, but would Thomas Frank, Marco Silva or Andoni Iraola consider walking out of a European push for a scrap at the foot of the table?

Sacking Postecoglou would probably mean Levy turning to another temporary solution (two-time interim boss Ryan Mason is on the coaching staff), which history suggests would leave the club in stasis until a new permanent coach and another brand new project could begin in earnest.

There is only one route to save Spurs’ spiralling season, leaving the chairman under pressure to move in the market

No one connected to Spurs wants another new start and another wasted season, leaving the board under pressure to prove that they have the stomach for a painful rebuild.

In fairness to Levy, the club recognises all this and the noises from on-high suggest the board remains behind Postecoglou, in spite of results.

And the club could emphatically prove that before the end of the month by recruiting the new players for Postecoglou which the head coach has repeatedly requested in recent weeks.

Signing first-team ready players mid-season, as Spurs did in January 2022 with Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur, could still transform the outlook of their campaign.

Unfairly or not, Levy has established a reputation for sacking rather than backing his managers when the going gets rough but, as it stands, only one of those options seems a plausible route to saving Spurs' spiralling season, leaving the chairman under pressure to move in the market.