I've found myself reading more about postecoglou than I have with any manager we've had since Santini , mainly because like Santini I had no idea as to what we were in for The more I read of Postecoglou the more I am up for it or am I getting drawn into some kind of cult ( corrects spell check ) The thought of reports that he will be getting rid of up to 17 of the squad makes me think that we could have a Forest situation or could it be we are going to get players on board that actually want to win rather than pick up the cash each week Time will tell , g'day sports
Don’t even think we’d need to bring in a crazy amount like Forest did should we ever manage to shift 17 players (which we won’t, though hopefully we can realistically shift about 10). There’d still be a decent core of players to build around with about 4-5 good signings and then we can utilise some of our youth to fill certain gaps in the squad. No European footy means we don’t need a bloated squad so it’s absolutely ideal for a massive cull and to allow Ange to build more or less from the ground up.
Not sure on the source as I saw it elsewhere: Ange Postecoglou on keeping players happy: "Everyone keeps saying I have to keep everyone happy. Am I supposed to go around making them cups of tea or buy their wife some flowers? They should be happy with a smile on their face every day because they’re doing what they love & representing a fantastic football club."
Tangential to the Ange chat but Mason’s position will be interesting now. On the one hand I think he’s got some promise as a coach and maybe they’ll want him as part of the team as a bit of club continuity. Then again a big part of the whole Ange thing seems to be a break from the past and having Mason on the coaching staff, someone who has his own relationship with the chairman, and many of the senior players, might make any cultural change more difficult. Plenty of rumours that he’s got a few job offers so I wouldn’t be surprised if the message is that he might be best placed to go and try his hand as a proper head coach somewhere else for a bit. He’s proper Spurs and I’m sure there will always be a place for him at the club but I’m not sure now is the time for a continuity figure.
I would like Mason to stay at spurs for now. It will stand him in good stead to work with someone with a different style to conte and Jose.
I think he’s already got his own clear ideas about how football should be played, to be fair. He’s said, or at least implied, he’s more inspired by Poch than any of the others. So I disagree a bit - I think he needs to go out and define that style as the main man rather than be part of someone else’s team for longer. Getting a leading role elsewhere is good timing for him and the club IMO.
I just can’t help feeling that it’s a little premature for Mason to manage a club, even one further down the league. He still seems a little out of his depth and wet behind the ears. I can imagine those tough footballers in the lower leagues eating him alive!
I'd seek a managerial job if I were him. Spent time working under Poch, Jose and Conte, three excellent people to learn from plus he's had a taste of the managerial life with our two interim stints. Personally if I were in his shoes, I wouldn't look at managing in the Championship or League One, I'd try and find a job in a European league outside of Europe's main five, ideally Holland or Belgium but Norway, Denmark, Austria could all work too. Build up his cultural knowledge but wouldn't feel too out of place with most of those countries being very fluent in English.
I disagree tbh. He’s played at the highest level and in the football league and has experienced coming through some very tough times despite his age. As a permanent manager he’d have the authority that a supply teacher managing his mates lacks. Though as DH says, I’d be as keen for him to go to Belgium as for him to take a football league job. That league seems to be a bit of a breeding ground for young managers and players right now.
Agreed. I was going to say the Graham Potter route could be wise for him. It is extremely rare to see British managers doing well in the lower leagues and then making the jump to the PL. No idea why but my suspicion is that it simple isn't considered 'glamorous' enough.
Of course the UKIP colour schemers are focusing on the first part, but the part about trusting the academy really needs highlighting
it’s fair to criticize the first part though, IMO. Regardless of what’s defined as “backing the manager”, the second paragraph coincides with the first. There’s been too many acquisitions (expensive and cheap) that have been pointless. -And many of the fans (average people) were able to foresee this prior to said signings. And that’s quite damning of the recruitment team and/or our policy with transfers when the average Joe can’t understand why, and ends up being correct in a large number of cases. We’ve just got to do better. there’s some serious work to be done with the academy in terms of how the players perceive their potential route to the first team. As a club that don’t generally bank roll new signings and can’t financially compete, again, we need to do better. We’ve let some decent players leave, and a club in our position can’t afford that. as many have said, everything needs to change from top to bottom, and I really hope the academy is something that is largely focused on. I really hope Ange can be the leader of this. Hopefully exciting times ahead, but at the same time who knows with Levy.
Almost all the poor acquisitions have been due to overpaying for players the manager specifically asked for. As I've said many times, the manager has no edge in identifying which players to buy. Levy used to understand that but trusted Pochettino too much. It would be very surprising if Pochettino had a negative edge though so bad luck is the most likely explanation. There is however no reason to expect us to be anything other than average in signings overall which means more than half will look bad. There is no evidence at all that anything is actually wrong.
The thing about that is how many of those pointless signings were the manager's and/or DoF's choice David Bentley immediately springs to mind as there was no need to sign a RW given we already had Aaron Lennon, and Ramos saying something along the lines of "Oh, Lennon can also play as a LW" did little to make that move look in any way logical, while Barren Dent was one of the worst examples of Comolli going rogue which led to a domino effect of having three starting-quality strikers (plus Bent) in the summer of 2007 to having Bent, Pavlyuchenko and Fraizer Campbell at the end of the following summer On the other hand, Stambouli-like signings make sense if we're getting a stopgap to fill a role that will be addressed later as opposed to thinking if we can't get the player we want we won't sign anyone at all (aka the summer of 2008) but only make sense if we can flip them for either something close to what we paid or even a tidy profit as we did with Stambouli or Dempsey - when they don't make sense is when they're at the club 3-4 years later, for example Fazio took some time to shift