Results may have waned, fans may have turned and the hamstrings of his centre backs may have been torn to tatters, but through it all, Ange Postecoglou has always had a brilliant turn of phrase.
This is the self-styled “old man shouting at clouds” whose criticism of VAR turned into existential questions about the character of human beings as a species en masse. “Every time I’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s usually been an oncoming train,” Postecoglou memorably lamented towards the end of his doomed tenure at Tottenham Hotspur.
Despite Europa League glory, Postecoglou couldn’t find a way off the tracks. A year and a half on from his divisive sacking, the coach turned his rapier wit onto his former employers during a deliciously embittered appearance on The Overlap.
Thomas Frank Was Always Doomed
Any interview with Postecoglou is usually entertaining—for everyone who isn’t asking the questions—but Gary Neville and his cabal of cackling cohorts lucked out when the news of Thomas Frank’s sacking broke on the morning of recording.
Naturally, this was the first topic of conversation. Postecoglou admitted it was “tough” for Frank, who “can’t be the only issue at the club,” but effectively warned that his dismissal was in the post from the start of the season.
Long-serving Spurs chairman Daniel Levy, the driving force behind the club for the past two decades, left his position of direct influence a matter of weeks into the season. In the eyes of Postecoglou, Tottenham have not stopped reeling from this upheaval.
“It’s made a major pivot at the end of last year, not just with me, but with Daniel [Levy] leaving as well,” he reflected. “They’ve had world class managers there. They haven’t had success. And for what reason? What was the reason for such a major pivot? Thomas is walking but what’s his objective? What’s the club’s objective?”
Postecoglou dismissed Tottenham’s public goal of competing on all fronts and questioned whether Frank demonstrated complicit naïvety when taking the job: “Did Thomas Frank know that he was walking into that? I don’t know.”
What Frank was walking into, for Postecoglou, is a club dealing with an identity crisis.
Tottenham Are ‘Not a Big Club’
The main crux of Postecoglou’s interview was a topic that has tormented fans for years. Spurs have the infrastructure and revenue figures of a “big club,” but they don’t act like one.
“Obviously, they’ve built an unbelievable stadium, unbelievable training facilities. But when you look at the expenditure, particularly in the wage structure, they’re not a big club,” Postecoglou bluntly outlined.
According to the latest published accounts for the 2024–25 season, which Postecoglou oversaw, Spurs boast the fifth-largest revenue of any Premier League team, outstripping Chelsea. Yet, they tallied the seventh-highest wage bill in the division over the same time period.
Postecoglou’s argument was that these funds were not invested in the talents supposedly befitting a big club: “I saw that, because when we were trying to sign players, we weren’t in the market for those players.”
Postecoglou’s Failed Transfer Targets
Tottenham were perennially accused of overt caution in the transfer market under Levy—a reputation which extends to the new-look regime if Cristian Romero’s social media posts are anything to go by. Yet, during Postecoglou’s two seasons at the helm (2023–25), Tottenham recorded the largest net spend of any Premier League club. The issue for the outspoken Australian was the identity of these individuals, rather than the cost.
“At the end of my first year, when we finished fifth, for me, O.K., how do you go from fifth to really challenging? Well, we had to sign Premier League-leading players,” Postecoglou argued.
“But finishing fifth that year didn’t get us Champions League, we didn’t have the money. So we ended up signing Dom Solanke,” Postecoglou fretted when looking back on the club’s record arrival. In fairness to the striker, Postecoglou was “really keen on him” and “really liked him” but had a lower opinion of the “three teenagers.”
Spurs splashed around £135 million ($184.2 million) in the summer of 2024 alone, adding Archie Gray (then 18), Wilson Odobert (19) and Lucas Bergvall (18) as well as Solanke. Postecoglou had more experienced targets—who just so happened to go to be signed by and impress for elite Premier League clubs.
“I was looking at Pedro Neto, [Bryan] Mbeumo and [Antoine] Semenyo at the time, Marc Guéhi, because I said we need ... If we’re going to go from fifth to there, that’s what the other big clubs would do in that moment,” Postecoglou declared, using the full breadth and width of the power of hindsight.
Postecoglou’s Missed Targets
| Player | Club in Summer 2024 | Club They Joined | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pedro Neto | Wolves | Chelsea | £51.4 million |
| Bryan Mbeumo | Brentford | Man Utd | £71 million |
| Antoine Semenyo | Bournemouth | Man City | £64 million |
| Marc Guéhi | Crystal Palace | Man City | £20 million |
“And those three teenagers are outstanding young players,” he added, unconvincingly. “Brilliant young players. I think they’ll be great players for Tottenham, but they’re not going to get you from fifth to fourth but what’s coming out from the club is, ‘We’re a club that can compete on all fronts.’”
“'I still felt Tottenham as a club were saying, ‘We’re one of the big boys’ and the reality is I don’t think they are in terms of my experience,” Postecoglou added, before turning to the direct comparison which no Spurs fan ever wants.
“When Arsenal need players they’ll spend £100 million on Declan Rice, I don’t see Tottenham doing that,” he pointed out. “Not just my history, even predating me. A lot of that was, ‘O.K. we’re building a stadium’ so obviously finances were a challenge.”
“When was the last time Tottenham really signed somebody who you go, wow?” was Postecoglou’s glaring takeaway.
Spursiness Is Real
Jamie Carragher, never one to miss the chance to twist the knife, drilled into the topic of “Spursiness,” that subconscious trait of lacking belief which has so often been levelled at the club over the past two decades. Postecoglou confirmed all the outside noise.
“100% there is, absolutely and that was the thing I was trying to break and my whole statement about winning things in the second year, I was doing that for the club because nobody internally would dare say that, they were just scared,” he insisted.
“Then you break that by winning something and what do you do? You tear it all up and you start again. That’s the curiosity, what are you trying to achieve?”
Postecoglou turned to one moment on the day of last year’s Europa League final, which proved to be the setting for Tottenham’s first trophy win since 2008. Daniel Levy came into the team hotel and let the weight of history seep out of him onto Postecoglou. “The only thing he said to me—which was bizarre as a motivational point—was something like, ‘You know what, I’ve been in seven finals or semi-finals and we haven’t won one,’” the former manager recalled in disbelief.
“I know why he said that, because of that [Spursiness], so that’s what I’m saying.”
The Real Cause of Tottenham’s Downfall
As Postecoglou was at pains to point, Tottenham’s neuroses existed long before his tumultuous two-year reign. Yet the club never sunk to the depths of the relegation battles they are currently fighting. Postecoglou’s diagnosis was simple: It all comes back to Harry Kane.
“People underestimate the role Harry played over the past 10 years,” Postecoglou pointed out when looking back on the club’s all-time top scorer, who left Spurs for Bayern Munich in the same summer the 60-year-old was appointed. “He’s unbelievable. I only worked with him for a couple of months, but he is the best player I have witnessed close up in my whole career.
“We played the last friendly game and I was still hoping against hope he would stay and he scored four goals.
“We played Shakhtar, the next week were playing Brentford and I know he’s not going to be there. And it’s not like he leaves and we go and sign Erling Haaland.”
READ THE LATEST SOCCER NEWS, TRANSFER RUMORS AND MATCH REACTION
- Arne Slot Offers Bleak Verdict on Latest Liverpool Injury
- ‘Muscular’—Arsenal Star Suffers New Injury Setback, Set to Miss Rest of Month
- Chelsea XI vs. Hull: Mass Rotation for FA Cup Tie—Injury News, Predicted Lineup
- How to Watch Atletico Madrid vs. Barcelona on TV, Live Stream
- ‘Some Problems’—Pep Guardiola Addresses Erling Haaland Injury Scare
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Five Talking Points From Ange Postecoglou’s Brutal Takedown of Tottenham.
