Tottenham’s collapse against Brighton on Sunday raised familiar and uncomfortable questions for the club, which head coach Ange Postecoglou will be stewing over during this international break.
Spurs went in at half-time at the Amex Stadium 2-0 up and headed for a sixth straight win in all competitions, but ended up losing 3-2 after a dreadful second-half performance. Postecoglou criticised his side’s “competitiveness”, accusing his players of lacking “fight” and failing “to do the basics” in perhaps his gloomiest press conference yet; the Australian did not seem especially angry, just deeply disappointed.
Postecoglou’s comments can be compared to Antonio Conte’s parting rant after his final game in charge of Spurs at Southampton, when he described his players as “selfish” and effectively disowned the dressing room.
Conte was more extreme and had a different motive (sack me!) but both coaches were making the same underlying point about the mentality of their players.
When managers criticise their players’ attitudes and blame the intangibles, it is often because they are covering up for their own shortcomings (this felt like Conte’s aim) or simply struggling to explain a shock result (arguably part of Postecoglou’s motive). Wondering about Tottenham’s mentality should not, though, be controversial because practically every Spurs manager of the modern era has come to detect some fragility at the heart of the club.
Postecoglou joined Spurs with more clarity about the situation than many of his predecessors (certainly Conte, who lamented that he did not realise what he was taking on) and the Aussie was appointed with a remit to both transform the football and change the culture at Spurs after Harry Kane said towards the end of the 2022-23 campaign that standards had slipped.
For Postecoglou, changing Spurs’ culture came down to changing the people, and he has followed through with a massive overhaul of personnel.
Only four players who featured at Brighton played in Conte’s final game in March 2023, and Spurs have appointed a new coaching staff, technical director, chief football officer and women’s team head coach since the start of last season.
And yet, if Postecoglou’s assessment of Sunday’s defeat was correct, some of the same issues still persist.
There are, of course, two sets of people that Postecoglou has no say in changing, the board and the supporters, and both have been accused of not wanting to win enough in the recent past.
Chairman Daniel Levy and the board have long faced accusations of setting the wrong culture at Spurs, although it would be a stretch to blame them for Sunday’s display.
Postecoglou, meanwhile, was frustrated by the position of some fans and staff over the game against Manchester City in May, which many supporters were willing to lose to stop rivals Arsenal winning the league.
I find it hard, however, to imagine that, say, Liverpool supporters would have behaved any differently if Everton’s title was on the line and the City game just felt like a freak situation, where the club and fans could not be on the same page.
Surely the most frustrating aspect of Sunday’s defeat for Postecoglou is that Spurs were fantastic in the first half, tearing through Brighton with high-octane, fluid football.
Tottenham’s approach remains a work in progress, but their style is already transformed from the dour football under Conte.
So, for all the talk about Postecoglou’s ultra-attacking set-up, perhaps Sunday’s game was a reminder that it is harder to change a culture than a style of play.
Spurs have looked like a fabulous team at times this season but they still feel like an unserious one, and Postecoglou’s biggest challenge is not making more disciples for his approach but turning everyone associated with the club into winners.
