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Manager Ange Postecoglou

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Going into the 2019 final we were in bad form in the league. We rode our luck in the knockout phases and then faced THE in-form team in Europe playing an incredible system of overlapping wide players and a strong press.

Sissoko made a mistake early, Liverpool scored and then the rest of the final was mostly us - but with no real creativity in the middle and an unfit Kane we couldn't turn our possession dominance into goals. That performance would still have been easily enough to win the EL against Man U.
 
17th in the league is too diabolical too give another season to the guy. I wouldn’t be happy with a 10th place finish but with the Europa win I will be over it quickly. 17th is just so embarrassing. I don’t see this guy making finish at least 10-12 positions above next year. No chance
 
Harry Vaginola said:
good tacticians have plans and counter plans, etc. they react to what is before them in the match. kamikaze ball gets us ripped to shreds most games so you have to find a balance and ange has shown he can't or won't do that. i lean towards can't. and we've seen what he's come up with to defend deeper and it produces 1 shot a game. again, people who know what they're doing don't put forth tactics and performances like that.
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"Angeball is naive and will always get punished too much at the elite level to threaten the sharp end of the table plus it can't be sustained physically against elite sides 50 games a season" is a totally reasonable argument.

"Ange reverting to parking the bus away in Europe was ham-fisted desperation by a dead manager walking" is also a perfectly reasonable argument. That it succeeded on the strength of weak opponents and good fortune is glorious for us, but hardly sustainable.

If we sack him I am genuinely fine with that and won't complain. I have a lot of skepticism and tend to believe that Wednesday night Ange delivered the best thing he can ever offer the club and think we might be wise to thank him for it and just move on.

But the arguments of the Ange haters in here (mostly not you) are so laughably poor I find myself defending him.
 
FightingIllini said:
"Angeball is naive and will always get punished too much at the elite level to threaten the sharp end of the table plus it can't be sustained physically against elite sides 50 games a season" is a totally reasonable argument.
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This statement bothers me a lot, Angeball is not naive, he's been a manager for decades and the tactic is one he's used many times before.

His system accepts you'll give up chances and for that you wil create more, so the logic is risk v reward. This is why I don't believe he ever critices the defence, because he expects we'll be open occasionally.

His system doesn't work because premier league opposition is much more ruthless than the Scottish League or J League, that's not a critique of other leagues, it's just physics, the attacking quality of the Prem is way faster, more varied and productive than these other leagues. It's not naivety, it's a failure to adapt.
 
Only two managers at the north London club have had worse seasons in the league than Ange since 1958 :

- In the 1958/59 season under Bill Nicholson, Spurs finished 18th in his first campaign with 36 points from 42 matches with 19 defeats, and
- In 1977 Tottenham ended up 22nd, losing 21 games under Keith Burkinshaw in his first year in charge and were relegated.

Both of two of our greatest ever managers, and of course both winners of all our previous european trophies.

It may not be as clear cut a decision as some posters would have us believe
 
FightingIllini said:
"Angeball is naive and will always get punished too much at the elite level to threaten the sharp end of the table plus it can't be sustained physically against elite sides 50 games a season" is a totally reasonable argument.

"Ange reverting to parking the bus away in Europe was ham-fisted desperation by a dead manager walking" is also a perfectly reasonable argument. That it succeeded on the strength of weak opponents and good fortune is glorious for us, but hardly sustainable.

If we sack him I am genuinely fine with that and won't complain. I have a lot of skepticism and tend to believe that Wednesday night Ange delivered the best thing he can ever offer the club and think we might be wise to thank him for it and just move on.

But the arguments of the Ange haters in here (mostly not you) are so laughably poor I find myself defending him.
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he's naive, ham fisted and desperate. cool we agree!
 
Harry Vaginola said:
my god we started a winks and sissoko midfield and a limping kane in that final after a season that went off the rails months before. even with all that poch's tactics still make ange look like a gym teacher. pressing triggers? possession? gtfoh
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I've always had a feeling that Kane was picked for internal political reasons but I'm sure he insisted on playing...he had a lot of influence at the club than. .something definitely wasn't kosher about that decision...
 
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78Spur said:
This statement bothers me a lot, Angeball is not naive, he's been a manager for decades and the tactic is one he's used many times before.

His system accepts you'll give up chances and for that you wil create more, so the logic is risk v reward. This is why I don't believe he ever critices the defence, because he expects we'll be open occasionally.

His system doesn't work because premier league opposition is much more ruthless than the Scottish League or J League, that's not a critique of other leagues, it's just physics, the attacking quality of the Prem is way faster, more varied and productive than these other leagues. It's not naivety, it's a failure to adapt.
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Sounds like you just said he’s not naive but then proceeded to describe naive. It’s naive to think that you can give up so many easy chances and win at the top level.
 
dudu said:
Lol

But Ange did it. Mason couldn't. Poch couldn't.

Experience isn't intangible. I know being stubborn is your thing here but your being unable to understand how someone who has won multiple things before would have more chance of winning something than two people that never have is a you problem.

To anyone who had any doubt as to whether you're someone who gets football or you're just another one of the I have to always be right brigade... this convo squarely shows them.
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i think mason played at a much higher level than ange his entire life and knows the game much better. maybe he can't tug at the heartstrings and tell the squad to do it for your mom like ange but i suspect mason knows much, much more about tactics than ange. is it all tactics? of course not, but suggesting ange is some kind of wise old soul who's seen it all is ludicrous
 
78Spur said:
This statement bothers me a lot, Angeball is not naive, he's been a manager for decades and the tactic is one he's used many times before.

His system accepts you'll give up chances and for that you wil create more, so the logic is risk v reward. This is why I don't believe he ever critices the defence, because he expects we'll be open occasionally.

His system doesn't work because premier league opposition is much more ruthless than the Scottish League or J League, that's not a critique of other leagues, it's just physics, the attacking quality of the Prem is way faster, more varied and productive than these other leagues. It's not naivety, it's a failure to adapt.
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This is all a good expression of what I was intending to convey with "naive".

To succeed with Angeball-like tactics at the PL/CL level would require a flexibility and subtlety that Ange hasn't shown and spends 10 minutes of every press conference insisting he'll never develop.

Harry Vaginola said:
i think mason played at a much higher level than ange his entire life and knows the game much better.
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And then someone says some absolute laughable bullshit like this and I'm back in Ange Army
 
Matt1882 said:
Huh? He was chopping and changing non stop from January on. VdV and Romero didn't play 90 minutes together at all after their injuries. Then there's the ridiculously low levels everyone was playing at.
Between his selections and the effort levels on display, it was always clear the league was a distraction. And why not? As I said, winning the Europa League is considerably easier when you don't care about Sundays anymore.
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He was chopping and changing because he had to. My point was that we were going out pretty much full strength each and every PL game, albeit with what players were actually available. He wasn’t out resting starters typically in lieu of kids or secondary players for EL games. We kept running out the same cadre of starters game after game and running them into the ground, hence the ridiculously low “effort” levels, which was less about effort and probably more about exhaustion, carrying injuries, and lack of confidence.

He and the players did what they had to do, so my point is really about his comments about de-prioritizing the league more than anything else. I’m just not convinced we did, or at least did it for as long as he is suggesting. I can believe it from the semi-finals and on maybe but not before that.
 
Spaniel said:
I've always had a feeling that Kane was picked for internal political reasons but I'm sure he insisted on playing...he had a lot of influence at the club than. .something definitely wasn't kosher about that decision...yahoo
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i totally agree. best striker in the world playing for wages below his worth gets to do what he wants at a club like tottenham. ironically it's not unlike keeping a failed manager another season because he won you your first cup in years. ruthless clubs don't play these games.
 
Harry Vaginola said:
i think mason played at a much higher level than ange his entire life and knows the game much better. maybe he can't tug at the heartstrings and tell the squad to do it for your mom like ange but i suspect mason knows much, much more about tactics than ange. is it all tactics? of course not, but suggesting ange is some kind of wise old soul who's seen it all is ludicrous
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I mean, Mason has been an assistant to Mourinho, Conte, and now Ange - he's had two stints looking after the club and managed a cup final, and has now been part of a major cup final win. He's arguably going to be a fine manager indeed, as his "apprenticeship" is absolute gold in terms of the range of styles and experience he's now worked with.

I think the limitations of Poch and Ange were the Bielsa and Puskas mentoring, which have obvious and distinct approaches being very attack-focused, but very little in terms of 'plan B' (let's not undo years of therapy by mentioning 'the diamond')
 
FightingIllini said:
This is all a good expression of what I was intending to convey with "naive".

To succeed with Angeball-like tactics at the PL/CL level would require a flexibility and subtlety that Ange hasn't shown and spends 10 minutes of every press conference insisting he'll never develop.


And then someone says some absolute laughable bullshit like this and I'm back in Ange Army
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Yes concede chances but for months now we barely look like creating anything. In the final we created f all. How many games are we giving oppo 20 plus shots or whatever whilst we barely muster any. His whole attacking philosophy is a myth.
 
CJJ said:
I mean, Mason has been an assistant to Mourinho, Conte, and now Ange - he's had two stints looking after the club and managed a cup final, and has now been part of a major cup final win. He's arguably going to be a fine manager indeed, as his "apprenticeship" is absolute gold in terms of the range of styles and experience he's now worked with.

I think the limitations of Poch and Ange were the Bielsa and Puskas mentoring, which have obvious and distinct approaches being very attack-focused, but very little in terms of 'plan B' (let's not undo years of therapy by mentioning 'the diamond')
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Poch’s team could defend. I think one season we had lowest goals against.
 
FightingIllini said:
This is all a good expression of what I was intending to convey with "naive".

To succeed with Angeball-like tactics at the PL/CL level would require a flexibility and subtlety that Ange hasn't shown and spends 10 minutes of every press conference insisting he'll never develop.


And then someone says some absolute laughable bullshit like this and I'm back in Ange Army
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so you think ange coming up through the academies and coaching in austrailia is on the same level as coming up in england or europe? i guess that's not surprising coming from an illini
 
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