Manager Ange Postecoglou

[HampshireSpur]

What strikes me is people constantly say everyone who wants him out misses context, then wilfully ignores the posts where people explain why he’s struggling WITH context. Rinse and repeat… rinse and repeat…

Click to shrink...

At this stage I think it's about belief, basically. There are those who really want Ange to work, probably due to the mostly dull stuff we've seen in the last five or six years, irrespective of the evidence before them.

In my view, Ange's Spurs are cooked. It's just a question of when is the best time for him to go. I don't think it's now.

 

[Nobody3]

Before this latest injury crisis, despite some bad defeats (Brighton, Ipswaich, Palace), we had the highest goals scored and 3rd lowest goals conceded. Even today we have conceded the fewest goals away from home in the Premier League. I have no doubt that, with the right players, Ange will win things for us.

Click to shrink...

I appreciate your optimism and we all have our opinions, but I have to say yours and mine are a million miles apart! This manager has shown ME, in pre and post match press conferences along with his on-field "approach" that he is nothing but a clown who has been embraced by the media simply because he make good copy.
I truly believe that this fool will genuinely harm any potential progress this club hopes to achieve by hindering the growth of our youngsters and forcing our 3-4 top players to want away. He can't go quick enough for me.

 

[Bill-bao Bob]

What strikes me is people constantly say everyone who wants him out misses context, then wilfully ignores the posts where people explain why he’s struggling WITH context. Rinse and repeat… rinse and repeat…

Click to shrink...

In general, some of the most prominent arguments are

'I can't see Angeball ever working'
'He's too stubborn'
Etc

That assumes that other managers would have gotten more points by sitting back, being more 'pragmatic', etc.

This will never be proven.

All I know is pragmatic football didn't work for us with Jose or Conte and playing that way lost the players and fans far quicker than Angeball has.

Sacking Ange is not a surefire way to more points. Can easily make the same argument that such a shakeup would damage us more.

Just have to see what the chiefs end up thinking I guess.

 

[Richard Arlison]

Maybe try not to happy clap too much pre Liverpool game and we might actually have a shot.

Click to shrink...

We lose games because of happy clappers now?

Be more negative about the team and we will win more games.

Incredible logic.

 

[Honest John]

Instances like this suggest the latter to me - man to man, guy looks and sounds unwell, it's not looking good. It might be best for all concerned if he resigned the more I see like this

Click to shrink...

It's very rare for a manager to resign in this day and age. He has over 2 years left in his contract.
Maybe some mutual agreement bullshit where he agrees a reduced compensation package from Levy in return for keeping his mouth shut about the club.

 

[Shadydan]

We lose games because of happy clappers now?

Be more negative about the team and we will win more games.

Incredible logic.

Click to shrink...

I bet Biss loads up the laptop in the dressing room pre match and logs onto TFC to see what the likes of Ricard Alison and Shady are saying in the Ange thread...wonder if Radu and the lads think about what we're saying during the match, food for thought

 

[Rebrov_Likes]

I'm somewhere between giving Ange the season, having given up on the league and us not having a good replacement lined up, and thinking he should go now.

Instances like this suggest the latter to me - man to man, guy looks and sounds unwell, it's not looking good. It might be best for all concerned if he resigned the more I see like this.

Click to shrink...

No modern manager is gonna resign because you give up the remaining sum on your contract - ie millions of pounds.

 

[Sir Archibald Crooks]

We've played 9 away games and scored 16 which is the joint 7th highest. But 12 of those came in 3 matches against United, City and Southampton who were all diabolical. 2 of them came in the defeat at Brighton. So just 2 goals in the other 5 away games against Leicester, Newcastle, Forest, Bournemouth and Palace.

Also 4 wins out of 11 at home is the truly frightening thing, and that's despite scoring the 2nd most goals with 26. Just how many goals do we need to score to be able to win at home? Brentford have been exceptional at home with 7 wins out of 10 but they've scored only 1 more goal than us. Liverpool have only scored 18 at home yet they've won 7 of 9.

The red flags re: Anges's football could not be raised any higher, it's blindingly obvious that results will never be consistent playing this way. We don't really do draws and we certainly don't do clean sheets, to get anywhere you need to do both of those things.

Click to shrink...

Good post. There are no positives to take. I'd also say its who we've beaten. Mentioned the other day that after Fulham last season we've played 31 league games, winning 11 and losing 16.

The 4 wins last season were against teams in 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th. This season another soon to be relegated side in Southampton, Everton who are 16th, West Ham, Man U and Brentford similar to us and the only outliers Villa and City who were both in shit form. Fair play you still have to win those but its slim pickings Over a 31 game period its remarkably poor. We dont beat top half sides often, we dont win away often and now our home form has gone to shit.

 

[Os22]

In general, some of the most prominent arguments are

'I can't see Angeball ever working'
'He's too stubborn'
Etc

That assumes that other managers would have gotten more points by sitting back, being more 'pragmatic', etc.

This will never be proven.

All I know is pragmatic football didn't work for us with Jose or Conte and playing that way lost the players and fans far quicker than Angeball has.

Sacking Ange is not a surefire way to more points. Can easily make the same argument that such a shakeup would damage us more.

Just have to see what the chiefs end up thinking I guess.

Click to shrink...

It’s arguable either way though mate, most people who are Ange in argue that he should stay because “there’s no one out there guaranteed to make us better”. Well, of course there isn’t, there’s no ‘guarantee’ of anything in life really. However the thought that you’re only really keeping your manager because you could get someone worse doesn’t say much for your current manager.

People keep pointing out the current injuries, the issues Ange has had have been visible whether he’s had his best players or not, our form, our points return, all of the available metrics very much go on a downward slide. The blokes won two league games in a row, I think it was 4 times since 2023. I think someone else already posted about him taking 30 points from a possible 80, a run of games which expands outside of the injury crisis.

Not you, but others on here keep saying people who want him out need to “look at the context” and then they explain that context is the current injury crisis, however in the most part (as I know there are some outliers) most of the posters are looking at an even wider context, they’re looking at when he had an injury crisis AND when he didn’t, and again, it’s a downward slope. He can pull off the odd big win (City, United) and as much as people try and play them down due to form, to me that’s not right, I criticise when I think he gets it wrong so I only think it’s fair to give credit and he did really well in those wins (I forgot Villa too, twice in fact).

People keep saying that we’re the highest scorers, yet we fly out of the front door and leave the back door open. People talk about our defence being decent, but it’s not being turned into points. For a long time we were statistically the third or fourth best team, but we were sat in 11th which should show it isn’t as simple as just reading the stats.

I have no issue with people being behind him, I don’t like chopping and changing managers either. However for me personally, all of the metrics, all of the data show that this guy is on a massive downward spiral and is out of his depth at this level. I think it’s very true that there is a reason he got to this age and this is his first ‘big’ job. I think he’s belligerent, and fairly arrogant because he’s style of football doesn’t work at this level and he’s so so hopeful he gets spoken about in the same breath as the top managers, but the simple fact is he’s not a top level manager.

I just can’t help but feel that there ARE managers out there who would improve us, be more tactically astute and aware, they would care about set pieces and the fundamentals that Ange basically says don’t matter and he doesn’t cover. They would still be able to play attractive football but we would pick up more points because we would be more astute across the entire team and set up, and I know some posters always chase posts like this with “yeah but who, but who” and I of course don’t know what wages Levy is offering or peoples contract statuses, but I genuinely believe (right or wrong) that most of the names mentioned so far (Silva, Iraiola, Frank) plus probably a few others would come in, and in a few weeks we would be better due to their set up. The choice isn’t all out or pragmatic, there are levels in between and I think other managers could find the sweet spot that Ange is too arrogant to look for.

I’m happy to be wrong, but I think there’s a lot of evidence I’m not, and I think a lot of people on here have the same opinion with all of the relevant context applied, this squad is better than people will have you believe and our current problems aren’t just because we have injuries.

Just my two cents… well, turned into an essay so probably more 15 cents. Sorry.

 

[skywalker68]

We've played 9 away games and scored 16 which is the joint 7th highest. But 12 of those came in 3 matches against United, City and Southampton who were all diabolical. 2 of them came in the defeat at Brighton. So just 2 goals in the other 5 away games against Leicester, Newcastle, Forest, Bournemouth and Palace.

Also 4 wins out of 11 at home is the truly frightening thing, and that's despite scoring the 2nd most goals with 26. Just how many goals do we need to score to be able to win at home? Brentford have been exceptional at home with 7 wins out of 10 but they've scored only 1 more goal than us. Liverpool have only scored 18 at home yet they've won 7 of 9.

The red flags re: Anges's football could not be raised any higher, it's blindingly obvious that results will never be consistent playing this way. We don't really do draws and we certainly don't do clean sheets, to get anywhere you need to do both of those things.

Click to shrink...

The only way his system improves is if, he is given the quality signings to make it happen.
But as we know, he has to work with what the options they provide him with, so he isn't going to achieve those heights.
Also like you mentioned, the team doesn't grind out draws very often, its all or nothing, sometimes they win or it ends in defeat a lot of them lately

 

[StripiestPilot]

What strikes me is people constantly say everyone who wants him out misses context, then wilfully ignores the posts where people explain why he’s struggling WITH context. Rinse and repeat… rinse and repeat…

Click to shrink...

The only context is injuries which is being used as an excuse to a ridiculous degree. Newcastle had Pope, Schar and Lascelles missing yesterday with Botman making his comeback from an ACL injury. They won the game comfortably.

Whats the context behind losing to Brighton away at 2-0 up? Or Palace away? Failing to beat Leicester at 1-0 up? Losing to Ipswich at home? I think VDV started all but one of those games and Romero played all of them. That’s 11 points thrown away before we even get to the current injury crisis.

Ange was failing to reach the expected standard long before these injuries (which he admitted he helped cause).

 

[Richard Arlison]

The only context is injuries which is being used as an excuse to a ridiculous degree. Newcastle had Pope, Schar and Lascelles missing yesterday with Botman making his comeback from an ACL injury. They won the game comfortably.

Whats the context behind losing to Brighton away at 2-0 up? Or Palace away? Failing to beat Leicester at 1-0 up? Losing to Ipswich at home? I think VDV started all but one of those games and Romero played all of them. That’s 11 points thrown away before we even get to the current injury crisis.

Click to shrink...

If we win all of those games we'd be title challengers so the fact that you expect this system to beat them inadvertently shows that you recognize the ceiling of this project - even if you are only recognizing it subconsciously.

Any team bar City and Liverpool would drop points in some of those games, the fact that we dropped points in all of them shows how much growth there is to come from this team. The majority of that growth comes in handling 2 games a week. Most, if not all of them were on EL weeks and even though we rotated, we looked leggy and fatigued in a large chunks of all of them. When we are fully fit we can blow any team off the park in spells, the growth will come when we can keep the ball and then pick our periods to blow them away like Klopp teams used to do in explosive 15min spells.

 

[HampshireSpur]

I have no issue with people being behind him, I don’t like chopping and changing managers either. However for me personally, all of the metrics, all of the data show that this guy is on a massive downward spiral and is out of his depth at this level. I think it’s very true that there is a reason he got to this age and this is his first ‘big’ job. I think he’s belligerent, and fairly arrogant because he’s style of football doesn’t work at this level and he’s so so hopeful he gets spoken about in the same breath as the top managers, but the simple fact is he’s not a top level manager.

I just can’t help but feel that there ARE managers out there who would improve us, be more tactically astute and aware, they would care about set pieces and the fundamentals that Ange basically says don’t matter and he doesn’t cover. They would still be able to play attractive football but we would pick up more points because we would be more astute across the entire team and set up, and I know some posters always chase posts like this with “yeah but who, but who” and I of course don’t know what wages Levy is offering or peoples contract statuses, but I genuinely believe (right or wrong) that most of the names mentioned so far (Silva, Iraiola, Frank) plus probably a few others would come in, and in a few weeks we would be better due to their set up. The choice isn’t all out or pragmatic, there are levels in between and I think other managers could find the sweet spot that Ange is too arrogant to look for.

Click to shrink...

Completely my own view, and one you have articulated well.

 

[Pól]

What strikes me about these convos in here is that those criticising us/Ange are ignoring all context.

Yes our points haul is poor.
Yes our league position is poor.

But we're not in this position with our full squad.

If we were, I would be saying Ange should go.

The players are clearly still with him and while they are so am I.

If he loses them then it'll change.

Click to shrink...

I genuinely don’t think the players are still with him. Maddison definitely isn’t. You can even tell by the body language yesterday when Maddison was talking to Ange on the sideline it’s gone to shit. They would never publicly say but these are professional football players and in their minds they have to be questioning his ridiculous tactic or lack thereof.

 

[Brian Fantana]

I just don’t get how anyone can watch us and not think it’s an utter mess defensively and in attack and in and out of possession. Nobody ever looks to be in the right place when we don’t have the ball for one.

 

[Murphy]

What strikes me about these convos in here is that those criticising us/Ange are ignoring all context.

Yes our points haul is poor.
Yes our league position is poor.

But we're not in this position with our full squad.

If we were, I would be saying Ange should go.

The players are clearly still with him and while they are so am I.

If he loses them then it'll change.

Click to shrink...

We are at barebones NOW for sure and although we are losing games at the moment it’s a little understandable given the personnel available but mate we’ve lost games with almost full complements too. Of his 22 league defeats the core players we are missing - Micky, Romero and Vicaro have played in a lot of them, including the 5 or 6 defeats at the end of last season and other games this. It’s not like them coming back is forcing to magically fix the poor tactics.

 

[Honest John]

It’s arguable either way though mate, most people who are Ange in argue that he should stay because “there’s no one out there guaranteed to make us better”. Well, of course there isn’t, there’s no ‘guarantee’ of anything in life really. However the thought that you’re only really keeping your manager because you could get someone worse doesn’t say much for your current manager.

People keep pointing out the current injuries, the issues Ange has had have been visible whether he’s had his best players or not, our form, our points return, all of the available metrics very much go on a downward slide. The blokes won two league games in a row, I think it was 4 times since 2023. I think someone else already posted about him taking 30 points from a possible 80, a run of games which expands outside of the injury crisis.

Not you, but others on here keep saying people who want him out need to “look at the context” and then they explain that context is the current injury crisis, however in the most part (as I know there are some outliers) most of the posters are looking at an even wider context, they’re looking at when he had an injury crisis AND when he didn’t, and again, it’s a downward slope. He can pull off the odd big win (City, United) and as much as people try and play them down due to form, to me that’s not right, I criticise when I think he gets it wrong so I only think it’s fair to give credit and he did really well in those wins (I forgot Villa too, twice in fact).

People keep saying that we’re the highest scorers, yet we fly out of the front door and leave the back door open. People talk about our defence being decent, but it’s not being turned into points. For a long time we were statistically the third or fourth best team, but we were sat in 11th which should show it isn’t as simple as just reading the stats.

I have no issue with people being behind him, I don’t like chopping and changing managers either. However for me personally, all of the metrics, all of the data show that this guy is on a massive downward spiral and is out of his depth at this level. I think it’s very true that there is a reason he got to this age and this is his first ‘big’ job. I think he’s belligerent, and fairly arrogant because he’s style of football doesn’t work at this level and he’s so so hopeful he gets spoken about in the same breath as the top managers, but the simple fact is he’s not a top level manager.

I just can’t help but feel that there ARE managers out there who would improve us, be more tactically astute and aware, they would care about set pieces and the fundamentals that Ange basically says don’t matter and he doesn’t cover. They would still be able to play attractive football but we would pick up more points because we would be more astute across the entire team and set up, and I know some posters always chase posts like this with “yeah but who, but who” and I of course don’t know what wages Levy is offering or peoples contract statuses, but I genuinely believe (right or wrong) that most of the names mentioned so far (Silva, Iraiola, Frank) plus probably a few others would come in, and in a few weeks we would be better due to their set up. The choice isn’t all out or pragmatic, there are levels in between and I think other managers could find the sweet spot that Ange is too arrogant to look for.

I’m happy to be wrong, but I think there’s a lot of evidence I’m not, and I think a lot of people on here have the same opinion with all of the relevant context applied, this squad is better than people will have you believe and our current problems aren’t just because we have injuries.

Just my two cents… well, turned into an essay so probably more 15 cents. Sorry.

Click to shrink...

Great post

Balanced, informed and without resorting to insult and ridicule.

A lesson to all.

 

[Bill-bao Bob]

Great post

Balanced, informed and without resorting to insult and ridicule.

A lesson to all.

Click to shrink...

Maybe its cos he isn't a caricature on here unlike some, including yourself.

 

[skywalker68]

It’s arguable either way though mate, most people who are Ange in argue that he should stay because “there’s no one out there guaranteed to make us better”. Well, of course there isn’t, there’s no ‘guarantee’ of anything in life really. However the thought that you’re only really keeping your manager because you could get someone worse doesn’t say much for your current manager.

People keep pointing out the current injuries, the issues Ange has had have been visible whether he’s had his best players or not, our form, our points return, all of the available metrics very much go on a downward slide. The blokes won two league games in a row, I think it was 4 times since 2023. I think someone else already posted about him taking 30 points from a possible 80, a run of games which expands outside of the injury crisis.

Not you, but others on here keep saying people who want him out need to “look at the context” and then they explain that context is the current injury crisis, however in the most part (as I know there are some outliers) most of the posters are looking at an even wider context, they’re looking at when he had an injury crisis AND when he didn’t, and again, it’s a downward slope. He can pull off the odd big win (City, United) and as much as people try and play them down due to form, to me that’s not right, I criticise when I think he gets it wrong so I only think it’s fair to give credit and he did really well in those wins (I forgot Villa too, twice in fact).

People keep saying that we’re the highest scorers, yet we fly out of the front door and leave the back door open. People talk about our defence being decent, but it’s not being turned into points. For a long time we were statistically the third or fourth best team, but we were sat in 11th which should show it isn’t as simple as just reading the stats.

I have no issue with people being behind him, I don’t like chopping and changing managers either. However for me personally, all of the metrics, all of the data show that this guy is on a massive downward spiral and is out of his depth at this level. I think it’s very true that there is a reason he got to this age and this is his first ‘big’ job. I think he’s belligerent, and fairly arrogant because he’s style of football doesn’t work at this level and he’s so so hopeful he gets spoken about in the same breath as the top managers, but the simple fact is he’s not a top level manager.

I just can’t help but feel that there ARE managers out there who would improve us, be more tactically astute and aware, they would care about set pieces and the fundamentals that Ange basically says don’t matter and he doesn’t cover. They would still be able to play attractive football but we would pick up more points because we would be more astute across the entire team and set up, and I know some posters always chase posts like this with “yeah but who, but who” and I of course don’t know what wages Levy is offering or peoples contract statuses, but I genuinely believe (right or wrong) that most of the names mentioned so far (Silva, Iraiola, Frank) plus probably a few others would come in, and in a few weeks we would be better due to their set up. The choice isn’t all out or pragmatic, there are levels in between and I think other managers could find the sweet spot that Ange is too arrogant to look for.

I’m happy to be wrong, but I think there’s a lot of evidence I’m not, and I think a lot of people on here have the same opinion with all of the relevant context applied, this squad is better than people will have you believe and our current problems aren’t just because we have injuries.

Just my two cents… well, turned into an essay so probably more 15 cents. Sorry.

Click to shrink...

Super post, think you put everything into context agree with all of it.

 

[Bill-bao Bob]

It’s arguable either way though mate, most people who are Ange in argue that he should stay because “there’s no one out there guaranteed to make us better”. Well, of course there isn’t, there’s no ‘guarantee’ of anything in life really. However the thought that you’re only really keeping your manager because you could get someone worse doesn’t say much for your current manager.

People keep pointing out the current injuries, the issues Ange has had have been visible whether he’s had his best players or not, our form, our points return, all of the available metrics very much go on a downward slide. The blokes won two league games in a row, I think it was 4 times since 2023. I think someone else already posted about him taking 30 points from a possible 80, a run of games which expands outside of the injury crisis.

Not you, but others on here keep saying people who want him out need to “look at the context” and then they explain that context is the current injury crisis, however in the most part (as I know there are some outliers) most of the posters are looking at an even wider context, they’re looking at when he had an injury crisis AND when he didn’t, and again, it’s a downward slope. He can pull off the odd big win (City, United) and as much as people try and play them down due to form, to me that’s not right, I criticise when I think he gets it wrong so I only think it’s fair to give credit and he did really well in those wins (I forgot Villa too, twice in fact).

People keep saying that we’re the highest scorers, yet we fly out of the front door and leave the back door open. People talk about our defence being decent, but it’s not being turned into points. For a long time we were statistically the third or fourth best team, but we were sat in 11th which should show it isn’t as simple as just reading the stats.

I have no issue with people being behind him, I don’t like chopping and changing managers either. However for me personally, all of the metrics, all of the data show that this guy is on a massive downward spiral and is out of his depth at this level. I think it’s very true that there is a reason he got to this age and this is his first ‘big’ job. I think he’s belligerent, and fairly arrogant because he’s style of football doesn’t work at this level and he’s so so hopeful he gets spoken about in the same breath as the top managers, but the simple fact is he’s not a top level manager.

I just can’t help but feel that there ARE managers out there who would improve us, be more tactically astute and aware, they would care about set pieces and the fundamentals that Ange basically says don’t matter and he doesn’t cover. They would still be able to play attractive football but we would pick up more points because we would be more astute across the entire team and set up, and I know some posters always chase posts like this with “yeah but who, but who” and I of course don’t know what wages Levy is offering or peoples contract statuses, but I genuinely believe (right or wrong) that most of the names mentioned so far (Silva, Iraiola, Frank) plus probably a few others would come in, and in a few weeks we would be better due to their set up. The choice isn’t all out or pragmatic, there are levels in between and I think other managers could find the sweet spot that Ange is too arrogant to look for.

I’m happy to be wrong, but I think there’s a lot of evidence I’m not, and I think a lot of people on here have the same opinion with all of the relevant context applied, this squad is better than people will have you believe and our current problems aren’t just because we have injuries.

Just my two cents… well, turned into an essay so probably more 15 cents. Sorry.

Click to shrink...

I don't believe he is perfect at all but I think a lot of his detractors are easily swayed by the lazy narratives that have been around since he started and they then call on them every time a bad result comes.

It started with 'he only does it in a pub league' and just gets added to.

People on here STILL mention last year's Chavs game.

Start of this season it was all about us not being able to defend set pieces - but they needed to use stats from last season to bump up the numbers cos this season, at the time, it was just two goals conceded or something.

Every game we win is cos the opposition were poor.

Yesterday we only played well second half because Newcastle let us.

I'm not 100% behind him. I can see why the genuine are nervous.

But I'm not gonna be swept along by those that would whinge and moan about him whatever happens.

He earns more rope from me because, despite the results, I am eager to tune into to every game. I shout at him. I disagree with some of his decisions but I admire his conviction and that he hasn't once blamed the players.

If he stays, I hope he turns it around soon.
If he goes, I hope the next guy keeps the eternally grumpy happy for as long as he can.