No manager in Premier League history has made a better start after nine games than Ange Postecoglou — and unbeaten Tottenham can extend their lead at the top of the table to five points with a win over Crystal Palace tomorrow.
Since Postecoglou’s appointment, Spurs have been revolutionised from a dysfunctional and fragile counter-punching team, totally reliant on Harry Kane, into an exhilarating attacking side, packed with brilliant young players.
Their strong start to the campaign is backed up by all sorts of performance metrics and comes in spite of the sale of Kane, the club’s greatest-ever player.
Postecoglou and the players have also transformed the mood, rebuilding the connection between club and fans which felt broken at the end of last season. And, as the head coach has repeatedly said, they are only just getting started.
When Postecoglou was named as Antonio Conte’s permanent successor in June, he was tasked with not only transforming Spurs’ style and results, but performing a full cultural reset at a club which seemed to have lost its very sense of self.
Last season, Kane and interim head coach Ryan Mason both admitted “standards” had slipped, and in his two interviews with chairman Daniel Levy, Postecoglou quickly understood that the job would be about more than simply coaching the first team.
For Postecoglou, changing Spurs’ culture started with changing the people. He interviewed and personally appointed a new team of coaches — Matt Wells and Mason, who began the process of making Spurs a happier place post-Conte, were kept on — and he vetted each summer signing in at least one video call to ensure the club was recruiting the right personalities.
Though Postecoglou gave all his players a clean slate at the start of pre-season, anyone who did not want to be there or did not fit his ethos was soon told they could leave and eased to the sidelines.
Crucially, he also ripped up every existing power structure in the squad. Of last season’s ‘leadership group’, former captain Hugo Lloris is now a Spurs player in name only; Kane is gone; Eric Dier is yet to play a single minute; and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has been relegated to understudy.
Postecoglou named a new captain in Heung-min Son, with James Maddison and Cristian Romero as vices — all intuitive picks who have grown with the responsibility.
Underpinning all this change has been Postecoglou’s own example, empathy and emotional intelligence.
The Australian knew, for example, that Son would be an overwhelmingly popular choice as captain so rather than break the news to the Korean in private, he announced the appointment in front of the squad, giving the group a moment to share together.
Though fiercely authentic and no fan of small talk, Postecoglou has added warmth and a human touch to the club, making a point of stopping to greet anyone he passes at the training ground, from academy player to ground-staff.
Flying start
The standout stats for Postecoglou's Spurs
23pts from nine games: Postecoglou has made the best start of any manager in Premier League history
No1 Spurs rank top for most shots on goal, most on target, most final-third passes and most touches in opposition box
7 goals scored in Premier League by Heung min-Son, who has overperformed his xG by 3.6 goals and been the most clinical player in the Premier League
29 chances created by James Maddison, more than any other Premier League player
2.55pts average per game for Spurs, who would finish on 97 points if they maintain that
He initially surprised his new colleagues with a remarkable ability to recall names. He has urged his players to be, above all, good people and emphasised over and over again how fortunate they are to be professional footballers.
Really, this is the basis for Postecoglou’s cultural reset; that everyone should be grateful for where they are, and respect their environment and the people around them accordingly.
The most touching moment of his tenure so far was when Postecoglou picked out a boy from SpursAbility — the club’s disabled supporters’ association — to ask a question at the recent fan forum. Asked about it later, Postecoglou used one of his stock phrases: “Never be proud of doing the right thing”.
Postecoglou often delivers these lessons in morality in his final team meeting before a game — at the Spurs stadium or in the hotel for away matches — in which he typically runs through his tactical instructions, before giving a motivational speech.
It might be on a certain aspect of the game, the need for hard work or perhaps something unrelated to football entirely, like the importance of family.
Postecoglou is such a powerful speaker in full flow, some players find it hard to take their eyes off him. He does not banter with his players, usually saving his lighter side for the media, and has backed up his words with actions, too.
When a senior player spoke disrespectfully to a member of medical staff on pre-season tour, Postecoglou gave him a dressing down in front of the squad.
When Yves Bissouma turned up late for pre-season training, Postecoglou reminded him that it was not what he expected from a potential leader.
Postecoglou is a meticulous time-keeper and has no truck with players who are tardy. But the former Celtic boss ultimately treats his charges like adults.
The players no longer, for example, have to stay at the training ground the night before home games, now arriving at the ground by car instead of coach, because Postecoglou trusts them to prepare properly.
The result of Postecoglou’s changes is a warmer, more respectful, more trusting and altogether more unified club, while the players have quickly developed a deep respect for their manager.
Maddison has described him as “real leader”, while others, including Bissouma and Micky van de Ven, have already labelled him a father figure.
Postecoglou’s own father was a “hard man” — not one for “bedside chats, cuddles and giggling” — but diligent, loyal and demanding.
Postecoglou has transformed the mood at Spurs, rebuilding the connection between club and fans which felt broken at the end of last season
Postecoglou was motivated by a constant desire to win his approval, a dynamic now reflected neatly between himself and his players.
In a way, however, transforming the mood at Spurs was the easy part. By dint of simply being the antithesis of Conte, Postecoglou immediately lifted spirits and was able to enact easy wins, such as giving the players a training schedule in advance, and reducing the number of team meetings and the length of training.
The summer signings also added freshness and were not hung up on the defensive football which had come to define Spurs’ decline.
Even Kane’s exit, which appeared to cast a dark cloud over the club, was a relief for Postecoglou and his squad, who were aware of the England captain’s desire for a fresh challenge and keen to move on from the saga.
But without Kane, and with a whole new tactical approach, getting early results was expected to be a challenge.
Postecoglou had previously said it could take six months to a year for players to get up to speed with his football, though he pointedly made no such claims on joining Spurs — perhaps conscious that better players might adapt more quickly. So it has proved.
From his first meeting with the squad, the 58-year-old outlined his “non-negotiables” both on and off the pitch, telling the players that anyone who did not fully buy-in to the new approach would not be part the “journey”.
He was conscious that his biggest challenge would be effectively re-programming a group who had played counter-punching football under the three previous coaches and, before starting the job, he had already identified the team’s alarming habit of dropping off to try to protect leads.
A slack end to the first half in the friendly against Shakhtar Donetsk on August 6 — Kane’s final appearance — offered Postecoglou the chance to give his players a rocket, and he tore into them at the interval, telling them that it was never acceptable to go through the motions.
This is a key tenet of Postecoglou’s approach; he wants his teams to keep playing his football at all times. Once his players realised this, it was easier for them to adapt.
When Spurs were chasing late winners against Sheffield United and Liverpool, Postecoglou’s message from the touchline was to forget the scoreline, the opposition and the ticking clock, and keep doing the same things. His team kept creating angles and scored last-minute winners in both games.
The head coach is always conscious, though, of the need to give his players reasons for playing his football.
When it comes to pressing high up the pitch at all times, one of his non-negotiables, Postecoglou has repeatedly told his players: “If you don’t press and they play long, you’ll have to run back anyway. So pressing high means the same amount of running but you have a chance of winning the ball!”
It has not taken long for the players to understand that his approach works, and both Spurs goals in Monday’s 2-0 victory over Fulham came from high pressing.
Postecoglou’s core principles are by now well-known — high pressing, inverted full-backs, play out from the back, attack in numbers — but he is always innovating, and has told his players they may end up creating something that is beyond even his imagination.
One innovation has been to allow Maddison to roam around within the team’s structure in search of space, and the playmaker’s impact has been phenomenal — Jamie Carragher this week saying he was the most influential player in the Premier League this season.
Postecoglou is also experimenting in training and has adopted an NFL-style approach to his coaches, who are all younger men to bridge the generation gap with the squad. Wells and Mile Jedinak look after the defensive side, Mason is responsible for attacking and Chris Davies oversees the sessions.
During the week it is not uncommon for the squad to hear relatively little from Postecoglou, who also leaves his staff to lead some meetings so the players do not get bored of the same voice and tends to take a backseat during the sessions.
Unlike his predecessors Mauricio Pochettino or Jose Mourinho, Postecoglou therefore does not dominate the training ground but there is no doubt that he is already the most important person at the club.
