Who are you and what have you done with Ange Postecoglou? There was a messy goal from a set piece, another from a mishit cross, a plan with pragmatism at its core and a team able to find beauty in the kind of ugly performance that has so often left Postecoglou cold.
All the cool came from Tottenham Hotspur in the Arctic Circle. They were robust rather than flimsy on the infamous plastic pitch at the Aspmyra Stadium, serious rather than spectacular, and they did not mind turning this Europa League semi-final against punchy, determined Bodo/Glimt into a grind. Postecoglou, the manager with supposedly no clue how to kill a game, came up trumps. Spurs were dogged, streetwise and smart in unpleasant conditions in northern Norway and, after a season of such strife in the Premier League, their reward is an all-English final against Manchester United later this month.
