That's a perfectly reasonable assessment of how it's been working but that is after all the injuries. The riskiest part of Ange's system might be a possible increase in injuries. It is perfectly reasonable then to assume that the system will give excellent results if the incidence of injuries is much lower than expected and abysmal ones if the injuries are much higher than expected. All I am trying to explain is that the current season outcome is not in itself sufficient to warrant sacking Ange. There are all sorts of other reasons why you might decide to but having bad results is not one of them.
Bad results is exactly why managers get sacked most of the time. I’ll repeat myself again, 17th in the league. 20 league defeats and counting. Worst ever league season in the PL era. He has to go and that’s because of constant bad results. It’s not difficult
I don't understand how anyone can think that playing a high defensive line and playing out from the back is a good idea when you've got Forster in goal, Ben Davies playing instead of Van de Ven or Udogie, playing Gray instead of Romero, etc., etc., etc. **** the system. The replacements aren't capable of performing in a manner that makes the system work to anywhere near even its flawed potential. It becomes a high risk system that has more holes than a Swiss Cheese. Our problem is the system is childlike and, too often, the players asked to perform in it don't have the requisite skills. It's doubly ****ING NUTS...triply so, when you add in that everyone and their dog knows that's how we're going to play...week in and week out. You cut your coat according to your cloth...or you end up looking like a ****ing idiot.
Your first sentence is a description of the problem not a description of the correct way of running a football club. I've described in detail above how a strategy that would allow us to win the League occasionally and qualify for CL more often would also result in us having a few very bad seasons. You've ignored it and reposted your usual mantra. The problem is that statistics are difficult to use.
That strategy will never work with the way Postecoglou wants to play and manage. The only way Postecoglou’s football would win the Premier League is if Daniel Levy gave him about 16 players worth £60m each (and not £60m spent like on a Richarlison, actual £60m calibre players). He’s proven he’s incapable of coaching players to be better, in fact around 80% of our squad has regressed under his stewardship and so for him to succeed he needs to have the best players available to win. It’s why we’re in the Europa Final right now, because at the start of the season us and Utd would’ve been the early favourites to win it and low and behold, we are indeed the two sides in the final.
It’s not a mantra. It’s a fact that results under him haven’t been anywhere good enough. 17th in the league with 2 games to go is beyond awful. 20 defeats and counting is also unforgivable. 38 points from 36 games. This isn’t me being anti Ange, it’s there in black and white. Just say he keeps his job, do you magically think next season Spurs suddenly change and become a top 4 team under him? The league position will be a bit higher without the extra European games but Spurs will still be far too easy to play against and create chances and players will still get injured often.
I think we all know that the only scenario in which Ange keeps his job is if we win on Wednesday, which means not just another season with European football, but exponentially harder European football. PS seems to be arguing that despite all evidence to the contrary, we've got every chance of finishing 4th or even challenging for the title next season.
Yeah next season with CL football could be even worse with injuries and results, that doesn’t bare thinking. Ange has shown he can’t juggle multiple competitions at this level
The fundamental issue despite all the commentary we could make about bad luck with injuries, and poor investment in the squad, is that Ange’s way of playing is flawed. I hate using terms like ‘game model’ as it feels too corporate for football but that’s what it is. In attack the game model relies on individual performances out wide to generate chances. We don’t create much through the middle and systemically either the players aren’t good enough to execute, or Ange hasn’t managed to embed through coaching, the patterns of play (fast passing, triangles, quick switches of play) that get wingers into space out wide or in the half spaces where they can cause impact. They only get this space if they beat their man, which causes too many problems if they consistently fail to do this, or get doubled up. Despite this we have scored plenty of goals - part of this is that we’re decent from set pieces (though we don’t get a lot of pens) but it’s notable that the signature of how Ange’s teams set up to play - creating overloads in wide areas to set up a cross or a cutback into the box - doesn’t consistently happen. Defensively we press reasonably well but it comes apart when we have to overplay players due to injury and when we can’t properly use a high defensive line to compress the pitch. We are too often wide open in central areas and are extremely reliant on 1v1 defending in wide areas - as the FBs are so often out of position this often means a CB or midfielder has to come across to deal with a wide runner which only creates more space inside if they don’t recover the ball. This is a severe structural issue in Ange’s game that exists even if we have everyone fit. Ultimately I think he has struggled to adapt to a league with a higher degree of player and manager quality across the board. His game model is too exploitable and suffers too much of a dip when the first XI, who themselves aren’t all the perfect players for the system, aren’t fit. The general level of the league when, say, Poch managed Spurs, was much lower. I think Ange might have won some trophies in the 2010s with that squad. He may well do for Spurs next week, I hope he does. But I think he’s proving he can’t or won’t adapt in the league (he has in the EL a bit) and even with those adaptations we still look vulnerable. It’s tinkering rather than wholesale change. So I’d prefer we move on from him, as much as there’s a lot I like about Ange.
Superb summary. I'm not sure about the last paragraph though. All of City, Chelsea and United were much better in Poch's time than what Ange has faced. Liverpool were about on par. Arsenal the only team that has improved and maintained that standard. In Ange's defence, our XI under Poch was better in pretty much every position than it is now. Perhaps there is a small argument that Udogie at his best would pip Rose to LB, but otherwise not a single player would be in danger of losing their place. But few Spurs fans seem to be ignorant of this fact. Most of us on this board predicted finishing anywhere from 6-9th given the extra fixtures. And with a decent cup run, we probably would've been happy with that. I personally think the standard of the league has dropped since Poch's time. This is why there is a raft of teams pushing for top 4 who haven't even broken the 70 point mark yet with two games to play. It's also why smaller clubs have outperformed expectations. Aside from Salah and a few others at Liverpool, none of whom are young, are there any genuinely world class players left in the league?
I am just doing a thought experiment. If I was being interviewed to be Head Coach at Tottenham I would tell Levy that I didn't expect to be able to improve the players noticeably so until he provided me with a better squad I would expect to finish sixth on average. However I would offer a high risk strategy which would increase the scatter on our outcomes so that instead of the likely range being 55 to 75 points it would be 40 to 90. I would achieve that by a more adventurous playing style that would both score and concede a lot more goals and risk more injuries. In seasons where everything went well we would get 70 to 90 points. In seasons where everything went badly we would get 40 to 60. If he appointed me I certainly wouldn't expect to get the sack if the latter occurred in my second season.
I think the best teams now (particularly this season) aren’t as good as when Poch managed us, but the overall quality of the teams outside the big 6 has improved massively - this may also be a factor in the big 6 not looking as good right now as there’s less pushovers in the league. To be clear I don’t think he wins the PL but I think there’s a chance he wins a cup in that era.
Score is getting close. Basically a 50-50 split. You’ll be begging him to stay by 10pm Wednesday. Ange Yisrael Chai.
That isn’t the case here or at any club though. If the average finish is 6th then finishing 17th rightly means getting sacked.
My post explains the maths of why that is the wrong conclusion. Your statement is the equivalent of saying 2+2=5!
I get the theory but the windows are too big. Better to have a 50% chance of winning the league and 50% chance of 10th than a guaranteed second place but there’s no situation where Spurs as the club is now should be so poor on the pitch they finish close to 17th and with a fairly embarrassing points total. Many of the injuries are at least in part down to his tactics, the recruitment has been meh. Would like for you to win on Wednesday and he’s a good bloke but surely it’s time for him to go after regardless.
Mathematically your first statement is correct but there are no real world situations where either of those two outcomes are possible. Chelsea are a very good example of an apparently chaotic strategy giving the sort of results we should be looking to replicate. They have finished 10th or below twice but also won the League several times in the recent past. Including a sequence of 1st 10th 1st.
Yeah but they wouldn’t get close to accepting 17th. He’d have been sacked six months ago at Chelsea if he’d made it this far at all.
On the subject of injuries ... If they have had such a detrimental effect on the seasons (abject) performance, then how come Brighton have lost about 20% more playing hours than us this year and have still managed to challenge for a European spot next term?
