Ange Postecoglou insisted he is not naïve about how swiftly the mood could change if his Tottenham team suddenly stop producing the impressive results they have so far delivered under him.
It would mark their greatest start to a season since 1965 if Tottenham beat Sheffield United on Saturday, and Postecoglou is fully aware that results will ultimately determine his legacy at Spurs.
Speaking on Friday about a perceived honeymoon period, he said: “I don’t know what your honeymoon was like, but mine didn’t involve losing the greatest player in the history of this football club [Harry Kane] on the eve of the transfer window — me trying to scramble to get players into the club, fighting for everything I do.
“I’m well aware, after 28 years, of the pitfalls of management, trust me. I’ve gone into this with my eyes wide open. Your radar is always up. When things aren’t going well, you’re thinking: ’Are guys going to respond in the right way?’. And when things are going well, you’re thinking: ’Are we getting complacent?’”
Postecoglou has won silverware wherever he has managed and was asked whether he has ever endured difficult starts to a job as the head coach.
“My first job, in 1997, I took over South Melbourne: the club I played for,” he recalled. “I was 30 years old, I quit my job at the bank as a teller. What a bad job, I hated every day. That’s the only thing that’s driven me my whole career: I never wanted to go back to that.
“We started the season, I woke up and it was our fifth game. If we’d lost that game, we would have been last on the ladder. The club I took over was the biggest club, at the time. We won 1-0. Scrappy game.
“There was supposed to be a board meeting that night with our President, who was a pretty smart cookie. He said he was sick and there was going to be a vote of no confidence in me, apparently. That didn’t happen. We went on the rest of the year and finished well.”
Postecoglou continued: “Brisbane in my first year, the same thing. Yokohama, we just avoided relegation my first year there.
“With all these things, you can say: ‘Jeez, you’re a lucky bugger because people stuck by you’. But I’d like to think people didn’t stick by me because I was lucky; they saw something there that they didn’t want to miss out on.
“Every one of those clubs, Celtic the same, they all got rewarded. All the beginnings have been difficult; I haven’t had one that’s been smooth. But, when I reflect on it, they’re the stories I tell. I don’t tell the stories of us winning things.”
