AN ANGE-OLD STORY
The news that Ange Postecoglou has agreed a flamin’ contract with Tottenham to become their new manager will be considered extremely grim by those Spurs fans who consider the Australian to be beneath the job of managing their great club. Such is their state of delusion that these entitled so-and-sos want somebody with iron-clad credentials in charge of their club, a serial winner in the mould of … er, José Mourinho or Antonio Conte. What they emphatically don’t want is some comparatively chilled out larrikin, who may not be as well known but has led four different teams to victory in six different title races, three domestic cups and an international championship since Spurs won their most recent trophy, whatever it was the Milk Cup was called back in 2008.
To be fair to them, some Celtic fans felt similarly sniffy when Postecoglou took over at their club, making clear their feelings that somebody who had “only” managed in Australia and Japan couldn’t possibly handle the pressure that comes with managing a club as prestigious and popular as theirs. It took approximately two press conferences for him to win them over and he went on to mastermind victory in five competitions across two seasons playing entertaining, front-foot football. Those same naysayers can now be found crying into their Irn-Bru, tears of joy at completing another treble replaced by a saltier drip-drip of sorrow at the prospect of losing a manager most consider to have been Celtic’s best since Jock Stein left some 45 years ago.
The fact of the matter is that Spurs are currently a shambles and it is rather ironic that much of the dysfunction with which the club is riddled can be traced directly to the legacies left behind by the kind of successful, big-name managers many supporters feel should be getting the job ahead of Postecoglou. After yet another season of underachievement and eye-wateringly bad anti-football, supporters are unhappy and many want the club’s chief suit horse-whipped out of north London. Their star player may be about to leave while others have serially underperformed. The prevailing mood seems to suggest that sorting out this mess will be beyond the wit of somebody as “inexperienced” as Postecoglou, although anyone with more than a passing interest in fitba will know it is almost identical to the one inherited – and quickly cleaned up – by the 57-year-old when he rocked up at Celtic Park two years ago.
Spurs being Spurs, there is of course every chance this could prove a job too far for Postecoglou, but he’s at least earned the right to have a bash at whipping them into some sort of decent shape, once they agree compensation with Celtic and he applies his scrawl to a two-year deal with an option to extend. If the worst comes to the worst, they can always usher him to the door and replace him with a more fashionable choice: a bald, middle-aged Dutchman or young German with a penchant for wearing BBC Two spectacles and controversial trousers. For what it’s worth, Football Daily is prepared to go out on limb and predict Postecoglou will be a big success at Spurs and leave the moon-howlers eating their words or, at the very least, pretending they never uttered them.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We were all hometown players that had lived and breathed United all the way through and then to win the treble, the way we won it, and also for the first time, can never be done again. But that moment of lifting all three trophies and doing the treble, you always want others to feel that. So if these guys get to do that then it’s an amazing moment for them but there’s only one team that’s won for the first time” – David Beckham there, trying his best to rain on Manchester City’s parade after they won the FA Cup final. Two down … one to go.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
I haven’t taken the trouble to write to the Football Daily before, mainly because I hadn’t quite grasped the fact that it is really just a former tea-timely iteration in a posh frock, but recent events make it hard to resist the temptation to rant. I am a Wigan Athletic season-ticket holder and, as such, am in a perpetual state of tension – just check out our 10-year record of relegation, promotion, near-misses, administration and points deductions since that great FA Cup final to see why (congrats to City, btw). My recent tension levels are at an all-time high, though. The Football League insists on repeatedly docking the club points. This does not stop the club defaulting on wages because, guess what, they haven’t got enough money to pay them. We will now start next season on -8 points (if we start next season at all) and be favourites for relegation to League Two. The concept of a sanction that penalises the wrong people and cannot stop the club defaulting again is plainly ridiculous. On the other hand, the Football League has twice passed owners of Wigan as being fit and proper when … well. What penalty is it giving itself? Just saying” – Alan Willis.
If only José Mourinho could land the job at Inter Miami. Now there’s a fly-on-the-wall documentary I’d like to see. Like a weird counterweight to Ted Lasso in which a club is revolutionised by relentless negativity” – Stephen Butler.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day is … Alan Willis, who wins a copy of The Three Lives of the Kaiser, a biography of Franz Beckenbauer by Uli Hesse.
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