It felt strange, looked strange, sounded strange.
“I’m delighted to introduce the new manager of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club: Ange Postecoglou.”
A man who needs no introduction for those of us north of the border, and as recently as a few months ago, a sentence nobody thought they’d hear any time soon. But yet here he was, sitting in front of an eagerly-assembled English media, draped in Spurs garb and deftly discussing the future of Harry Kane. It still takes a bit of processing.
Why? For two years, Postecoglou pretty much was Celtic.
From tactics to transfers, he grabbed a tail-spinning club by its green and white hoops and proceeded to course correct it back into an unstoppable domestic juggernaut, becoming so prominent, influential and idolised that it became hard to imagine the club without him. He won five trophies from six, broke goal records set in stone since the Lisbon Lions, and redefined the word ‘mate’ in Scottish football’s lexicon as alternately a term of mild endearment and a shorthand for indicating he absolutely did not care for your line of questioning.
Its intonation was exclusively of the former on Monday, part of an effortless charm offensive which, judging by the mood around the Tottenham Hotspur training ground afterwards, won the approval of a packed press room. It was as relaxed as you’ll see Postecoglou, and there was a buoyancy about him that, in retrospect, wasn't quite apparent during his final weeks at Celtic.
He trod carefully when invited to criticise Bayern Munich’s increasingly public courting of Kane, dropped the odd one-liner in where required, checked on a young photographer when her camera picked an inopportune moment to fall apart, invoked Tottenham legends of the past and his memories of them back in Australia. Even a question which basically amounted to alleging ‘a lot of Tottenham fans didn’t want you here’ – an enquiry with real death stare potential if issued at Lennoxtown – was brushed off with a light touch and a smile.
“I've never taken social media as a barometer of me as a person,” Postecoglou said. “I'd hate to think anyone does. There's more to life than who we are. Unless you've actually polled every Spurs fan in the world and you've come out with a defining majority that don't want me here, I'd suggest that what comes out of social media comes out of social media.
“Supporters with every appointment have the right to reserve their judgement. Absolutely, why not? This is their football club and anyone who comes through their football club they have a right to determine whether they think it's the right person or not.
“For the most part, I think the overwhelming majority of Tottenham supporters want me to be successful because if I'm successful then their club is successful.”
It would perhaps be inaccurate to call it a perception ‘problem’, but as he did at Celtic, Postecoglou has hearts and minds to win over in London - and he knows it. It is no secret that Spurs courted several other managers before turning their eyes towards Glasgow’s east end, and there remains a prevailing opinion among sections of fans in England that if you haven’t ‘done it’ in certain quarters of the game then your CV is not worth the paper it is written on.
None of the leagues Postecoglou has frequented will be enough to shift those already entrenched in that view, it is what he does from now that matters. But as opening impressions go, he was near-flawless in handling his first public examination as Tottenham manager. His predecessors, Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho, did not connect with a fanbase aching every day for someone to bring success to their club.
Far from taking people on the journey with him, Conte, in particular, seemingly tried to burn every existing bridge before he was eventually sacked. Scorched earth is not in Postecoglou’s playbook. Here, it felt like he was sowing seeds. Even from a media perspective, there seemed to be an added appreciation of his dry humour given it followed Conte's patented brand of misery on and off the pitch, not least considering the final days of dealing with the Italian must have been akin to standing in front of an active volcano and asking it 'how's the squad looking this weekend, Antonio?'
If Kane tuned into Sky Sports from the final days of his holiday, he would surely have been impressed by his new manager. It may not change the outcome of where he plays his football next season, but the Tottenham captain will report for training later this week already knowing where he stands with Postecoglou.
He was never going to beg Kane to stay, but he did extend something of an invitation that amounted to – I want what you want at this club, let’s talk about making it happen. Postecoglou was asked directly if he felt he could be successful without the club’s record goalscorer, and his answer was typically intriguing.
“I don’t think in those terms but there’s no doubt that, and I think Harry would say it himself, he wants his team to be successful,” the manager said. “He’s been very, very successful individually for a long time, pretty much from when he first started at this football club. He would be the first to say that we need a strong team and that’s where my focus is.
“To build a team will reflect the same sort of individual excellence that he’s had in the team context. I’m certainly big on team ethos and making sure we need a strong unit if we are going to be successful and I’m sure that Harry would be the first to voice that needs to be the case.”
It was a slight softening of a consistent Postecoglou stance at Celtic, in that he often made clear he was only interested in working with individuals who want to be at the club. The likelihood is that Kane has not told him anything either way as yet, but he did offer a hint that he is willing to make a case to the 30-year-old striker as to why this is the beginning of the end of Tottenham’s 16-year trophy drought.
It was a stat launched at Postecoglou early on and batted away with another quip – “You’ve painted a pretty bleak picture, I was excited about the role!” – one that suggested he is not going to allow himself to get bogged down by Spurs’ recent past. In terms of his own recent past, there wasn’t much interest in the room about the achievements which preceded his journey south. In fairness, there are a million and one topics requiring addressal at Tottenham and the small matter of the Scottish Premiership – or the ‘SPL’ as it still seems to be down south – didn’t feature too prominently on anyone’s agenda except my own.
But there are undeniable parallels between what faces Postecoglou now and what he inherited at Celtic. He has styled himself, effectively, as a builder of teams, stressing that these situations are his specialty. Upon arriving at Celtic, he declared those early stages where foundations are laid and doubters remain plentiful as his ‘favourite’ part.
Maybe that’s why he seems particularly at ease in a job that has sent higher profile managers running for the hills. Maybe he will be the man to give Tottenham an injection of much-needed life.
“I want to bring success to this football club and I want to bring European football to this football club,” Postecoglou declared. “To bring it back to where it has to be. The biggest thing is that there is an enormous challenge here and I love it. For me, all my career I have always taken over side who have a rebuild and that is the challenge.
“To create something that hopefully lasts over my tenure because I won’t be here forever. What does success look like? The fans will tell me that.”
Postecoglou has certainly told them what exactly he is at Tottenham to do, and you can’t help but feel they will have listened to him yesterday and felt increasingly excited about the prospect.
