Tottenham are in limbo as Ange Postecoglou must ponder what comes next | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou may be a prisoner of his deeds. Or he may be a prisoner of his words. “I don't usually win things, I always win things in my second year,” he memorably said in September. There are times when it seems that Postecoglou can specialise in backing himself into corners, while simultaneously picking hills to die upon.

He may need to downgrade ‘always’ back to ‘usually’: after a 4-0 Carabao Cup shellacking at Anfield, Tottenham Hotspur’s hopes of domestic silverware could be ended within four days. It would leave only the Europa League and him probably with nothing to show for his season.

It may put him in good company. Tottenham’s finest managers of the last three decades, in Mauricio Pochettino, Martin Jol and Harry Redknapp, won nothing. Their only trophies in that time came from two unloved figures, in George Graham and Juande Ramos. Given chairman Daniel Levy’s apparent lack of interest in honours and focus on the bottom line, the more damning and damaging detail is the Premier League table, showing Tottenham in 14th, on course for their lowest finish in 21 years. They have not ended up below 14th for 31, since they were managed by Ossie Ardiles, another romantic from thousands of miles away who is fondly remembered for his attacking ethos but who was undermined by a combination of results and a seeming lack of interest in defending.

Postecoglou had presented himself as Tottenham’s new inflexible idealist, Ardiles with an Australian twang. “It is just the way we play, mate,” served as an eight-word explanation of his approach. He would not compromise: until he did compromise, unsuccessfully. He switched to a back three at Everton and went 3-0 down in the first half to a goal-shy team. He went on the defensive at Liverpool – while claiming the intent was the same as ever – and lost 4-0, while failing to register a shot on target.

But a downward spiral began when he was in uncompromising mood. The highs of Angeball – the almost surreal 4-0 win at Manchester City – have been followed by the lows. Tottenham have evidence the best of his blueprint can be brilliant, but that they can suffer from a lack of pragmatism. They are the side who afforded Crystal Palace and Ipswich their belated first wins of the season, who lost to out-of-form Everton and Leicester teams in successive weeks.

Postecoglou has positioned himself in the vanguard of the principles revolution, where the process seems to matter more than the outcome, where defeats are presented as staging posts on the road to something better. The problem is that his fellow travellers can feel discredited by their own experiments. Of the three managers most fixated with their own philosophies, Russell Martin left Southampton when on course for perhaps the worst season in Premier League history and Ruben Amorim declared this might be the worst Manchester United team ever. Whether or not it entailed parking the bus, there are times it seemed each should have parked his ego and simply got results.

Ange Postecoglou’s lack of pragmatism could lose him his job (PA Wire)

Postecoglou’s wins have been sporadic since the heady days of his first 10 league games. The last 52 have yielded just 67 points, the last eight just four. That, however, has come at a time of mass absentees.

Is he just undermined by injuries, shorn of his three main centre-backs and, by half-time at Anfield, both of the senior strikers he had at the start of the season, minus three more of the catalysts for his superb start, in James Maddison, Destiny Udogie and Guglielmo Vicario? Postecoglou’s references to injuries have been so frequent that one of the odder aspects of his week was receiving an apology from the Leyton Orient manager; “I’m not going to make excuses, I’m not Ange Postecoglou,” said Richie Wellens, before claiming he was “embarrassed” by what may have been a throwaway remark.

Postecoglou should have greater worries anyway. A trip to Villa Park on Sunday is a reminder of one his great away days with Tottenham. A 4-0 victory in March suggested Spurs would finish ahead of Aston Villa and qualify for the Champions League. Which, perversely, was something Postecoglou had argued was not particularly important to him. “It’s not a Willy Wonka golden ticket,” he said.

Levy may disagree. A top-four finish could be the trophy he wants, especially when secured on a limited budget. A glimpse at Villa now shows the alternative reality for Tottenham: beating Bayern Munich, going top of the Champions League, if only briefly, securing a direct route into the last 16 and looking potential quarter-finalists.

It may all be done with a Levy-unfriendly wage bill – and would Tottenham now want to be paying 75 percent of Marcus Rashford’s salary for the remainder of the season? – but the counter-argument is that it displays ambition. Postecoglou’s bullishness about his trophy-winning past may have been music to Spurs supporters’ ears. Yet if his version of second-season syndrome ends, it invites the question of what comes next.