Why Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham are the Premier League’s weirdest, wildest ride | OneFootball

It’s just the way they play, mate. From 3-4 to 1-1 to 5-0 to 4-3 to 3-6, with Tottenham taking and giving up leads and mounting comebacks and scoring in the first minute and conceding at almost any point, often in calamitous fashion. No scoreline is safe, no onlooker bored. Some are exhilarated, some exasperated. And if Ange Postecoglou can fall into the latter category, his annoyance is directed at his inquisitors, not his riotously erratic team. They have been 5-0 up and 5-1 down in the same week. Even by their own standards, it has been a wild ride.

As Spurs lost 6-3 to Liverpool, the defiance came not from a team who were cut open time and again, but a manager who is adamant he will stick to his philosophy. “I think I have been really patient the last 18 months sitting up here answering the same questions over and over again,” he said. “If people want me to change my approach, it’s not going to change.”

Uncompromising to the last, Postecoglou sometimes seems to have backed himself into a corner; unhelpfully, perhaps, given the regular accusation is that Spurs can’t defend a corner, even if they contrived to concede six times in open play against Liverpool instead. He is zealot and idealist, the man with the radical stance that can lead to accusations he is delusional. It is brilliant when it works; the problem is it doesn’t work often enough.

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Postecoglou shows his frustration during Liverpool’s 6-3 win in north London (Getty Images)

Tottenham have won three away league games this season: 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0. They have four victories against the Manchester clubs, and a home defeat to Ipswich. They are the Premier League’s top scorers. They are also in the bottom half of the table. They have twice scored three while losing. Angeball is compelling. Angeball is also weird.

“We’re doing it for a reason because we think it will help us to be successful,” said Postecoglou. There is diminishing evidence they will be. After his wonderful first 10 league games produced 26 points, the last 45 have yielded 63, an average of a mere 1.4 per match. Postecoglou said last month that no one would be happy if Tottenham were 10th at Christmas. They are instead 11th. “If you're saying that 10th [or 11th] means I'm not doing a good job and I maybe somehow should be uncomfortable, that's for others to judge,” he said.

And a verdict did come in. There were some boos at the end, though more protests and chants recently have been directed at chairman Daniel Levy. “The fans they should feel the way they need to about what it is happening,” said Postecoglou. “Who knows, maybe some of them understand the situation we are in today. It seems many don’t.” Not for the first time, it was Postecoglou at his most passive-aggressive.

And, in mitigation, that situation is affected by absentees. Perhaps, with their full-strength defence, and not just only Pedro Porro from the first-choice back four and goalkeeper, Liverpool would not have recorded the highest ever xG against Tottenham in a Premier League game, or threatened to score 10. And yet one of the damning elements of the Postecoglou blueprint is that last season Porro, Destiny Udogie, Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Guglielmo Vicario all impressed and they still conceded 61 goals. It represented a warning. The tactics are a recipe for chances.

Part of it is the high line; the magnificently entertaining fiasco of last season’s 4-1 defeat to Chelsea led to Postecoglou’s infamous assertion that it was just the way they play (mate). But they are open in midfield, don’t protect the full-backs, don’t track the runners and make kamikaze attempts to play out from the back.

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Postecoglou’s side will spend Christmas in 11th in the Premier League table (Getty Images)

Maybe the style of play is so ambitious that it takes time; the rewards can be so great, as they showed in winning 4-0 at Manchester City. “We are still growing as a team and we are 18 months into building a new team with a new way of playing,” said Postecoglou.

But, consistently inconsistent, with the points tally of a mid-table team and the scoreline of a side from the 1950s, are they building and growing or just careering along on the Postecoglou rollercoaster, veering up and down with all the thrills and spills, but not actually getting anywhere?

It may be hard to say. It is a recipe for fun for outsiders but the Australian isn’t enjoying the criticism and some fans aren’t enjoying the defeats.

The criticism was that Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte didn’t understand Tottenham well enough. Perhaps Postecoglou understands them too well. Or maybe he has out-Tottenhamed Tottenham, proving more extreme than the club in the identity he has embraced, creating a scenario where some seek something a bit more normal.

Maybe some of the Spurs faithful are starting to crave some moderation, some pragmatism, a 1-0 win instead of a 6-3 defeat. But that, as he forever makes clear, is not the Postecoglou way.