February 11 – Take between 10 and 12 injured players out of any team in the English Premier League (or any other division in any country for that matter), ask them to play game after game, week after week, without rotation – and see where it gets you.
Well, that’s Tottenham Hotspur manager’s Ange Postecoglou’s response to speculation that within days he could become the latest Spurs manager to be fired after less than two seasons in the job.
The North London club were unceremoniously knocked out of the FA Cup on Sunday by Aston Villa, four days after their humiliating semifinal League Cup elimination to Liverpool, heaping pressure on the Greek-Australian and his assertion that he almost always wins a trophy in his second season.
With Tottenham languishing in 14th place in the Premier League, the team’s only chance of a first piece of major silverware since 2008 lies in winning the Europa League amid questions over Postecoglou’s insistence on employing a daring but highly risky style of play and whether the club’s notoriously impatient chairman Daniel Levy will put up with many more setbacks.
Frustratingly for Spurs fans, only now – with both domestic cup exits a painful memory – are there gaps in the schedule to recover key players like Cristian Romero, Dominic Solanke and Micky van der Ven.
“For two-and-a-half months, this small group of players have given everything in multiple competitions,” Postecoglou declared after the 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa on Sunday that followed the 4-0 League Cup trouncing at Liverpool
“We had 11 first-team players missing today. We started with four teenagers, a 21-year-old goalkeeper coming to one of the best teams in the country, away from home after playing the best team in the country on Thursday night, after playing a Premier League game last Sunday, playing a Europa game [before that].
“The same group of players. No rotation, and they’ve been doing this since the middle of November. Not a change.”
All valid points, and while Postecoglou is certainly not blameless – his back-up players do not have the energy required to press opponents as “Angeball” requires and there is no recognisable Plan B – Spurs fans have instead directed most of their ire towards Levy in recent games for lack of investment and detachment from diehard supporters.
But of the two, Postecoglou – the sixth Spurs manager to hold the fort since the end of the Mauricio Pochettino reign in 2019 – will surely be the one to depart.
After all, the manager invariably pays the price for poor results and lack of progress, not just at Tottenham. Twas ever thus.
Contact the writer of this story, Andrew Warshaw at moc.l1739303845labto1739303845ofdlr1739303845owedi1739303845sni@w1739303845ahsra1739303845w.wer1739303845dna1739303845