Ange Postecoglou has to swallow pride to avoid Spurs sack in November
Ange-Postecoglou-is-on-borrowed-time
Come on Ange Postecoglou, save yourself. Something has to change at Spurs. Plus, mails on why Man City are boring.
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Come on Ange…save yourself
Hello, been a while since I wrote in. I hope everyone’s well…
Anyways, I really fear for Ange here. When there’s a horrible sense of inevitability about a team getting beaten, that’s when…and sorry for the PFM sound bytes…you lose the changing room.
It’s all just so needlessly noble. I’m not quite sure what we’re fighting against here – playing a different style of football occasionally, not asking Ben Davies or Emerson Royal to get rinsed by Saka and Salah, being really cheesed off at naughty Ben White flicking the goalie’s gloves…?
To have to make three changes after an hour suggests he got it wrong from the start. And this has been happening over and over again.
How on earth can you put the same team out at Anfield, barring Richarlison, and expect a different result. What’s going on there – arrogance, freezing like a rabbit in the headlights…? What are you standing up for here Ange – defeat, consistency, defeated consistency? Yes Mourinho was boring, and yes Conte thought he was above us…but we’re okay with a bit of pragmatism when its needed.
Please mate, save yourself. We don’t especially want to go back to square one, we like you, you’ve got something about you. But you’re going to have to be a bit less proud and one dimensional to make it to November.
Andrew, Woodford Green
READ: 16 Conclusions on Salah, Ange, Elliott and the brilliant fun of Liverpool 4 Tottenham 2
Tottenham are the kings of the false dawn
“Tottenham… still the ultimate specialists in producing false dawns.”
It was around the 67th minute of the US broadcast of Liverpool vs Spurs, with the visitors trailing four in arrears, when Jon Champion uttered this tremendous mic drop of a line. He said it deadpan, ice cold, with absolute crickets in the commentary booth to follow. I thought to myself, Wow, surely he’s gone early there with such searing assessment of a still nascent Postecoglou era?
Then post-match and out running routine errands with the missus, it belatedly occurred to me: this is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club we’re (he was) talking about.
When Villa opened the day with their meek 0-1 reverse to Brighton, it meant two things: we were assured of third in the table, and Spurs were back in with a fair shout for fourth. Such as circumstances were I’d expected a full head of Ange-ball steam for our fixture, with perhaps the customary Liverpool gift of a goal or two shipped early doors. What we got instead was red arrows for an hour and a tidy 4-0, before flip flops and beach towels came out and Spurs clawed too few back too late.
This got me theorizing just why it is this Spurs iteration is viewed ever more as another false dawn, and why Spurs’ fan base are the one football supporting entity in the world most susceptible to falling victims to false dawns to begin with.
Frankly I think it’s because living life as a Spurs supporter would just make any reasonable person so damned unreasonably thirsty. More so than any other fan base, they’re absolutely parched (Peter Crouch would love this I reckon). But yeah, dry as a desert zero moisture parched, a history of not even remote condensation to siphon—that’s life as a Tottenham fan.
And working with just recent history, imagine if Liverpool FC had employed Tony Pulis followed by Sean Dyche, then a Simeone before Brendan Rodgers comes in. Suddenly Rodgers is this huge breath of fresh air, stanned like some kind of tactical attacking savant about to usher in new glories. Well now imagine, or just reflect upon rather, Postecoglou gliding in on his quippy Aussie magic carpet after the likes of Mourinho, Nuno, Conte (and Ryan Mason ffs)… Of course the Thirsty Ones will see Ange as some incredible rapturous messiah. We’re talking decades in the wilderness, mate, the outback ! Don’t hate, just think on this for a minute. Makes too much sense doesn’t it ??
Eric, Los Angeles CA
…King makers? More like Court Jester.
Matt Wright, Gunner in Aus
Maybe don’t shop in Scotland…
Having watched Spurs being rubbish again, I think it’s pretty clear that getting a manager from the Scottish PL just shows a lack of being an enticing team for anyone good.
With the obvious exception of Sir Alex, I can’t think of another properly successful transition from the just about professional quality of the Scottish PL to the English PL.
Steven Gerrard? Won the league with Rangers. Absolute dog sh&t at Villa. Then in comes Emery and Villa are a top 6 side.
I don’t really care about Spurs being useless as I’m an Arsenal fan, but big Ange really can’t teach a team how to defend.
When you’ve come from Celtic, you don’t need to. It’s all too easy against pretty poor opposition.
Get to the big leagues though and you’ll get found out.
If he’s there next year, nothing will change
Please stay ..
Liverpool are 4 up against Spurs as I type this.
Stu – Gunner in France
Villa running on fumes
I fully expect Villa to be in the losers column but the mitigants need to be highlighted.
The squad is running on fumes with a massive injury list – a look at the bench shows why we stumbling over the line.
Paul
On Man City being stale
Loved Johnny Nic’s article on City’s staleness and may I congratulate him on writing an article that is certain to boil the piss of City fans. He also mentions that he can’t quite pinpoint why City are so boring but we’ve got a decent idea why.
As John mentions, jeopardy is an important part of entertainment. We get entertained by great films and novels because of the imperfections of their characters and the challenges they face in the plot. Noone would enjoy a film where the main character just strolls through life because they’re a trust fund kid who’s been bestowed with all the required resources. We want to see thrills and spills, a journey.
This is why City may be the most disrespected title winners in football history. A broad spectrum of fans are able to recognise the greatness of certain teams, like Arsenal’s Invincibles which was mostly made of players that had declined at other clubs and who were brought in by Wenger playing moneyball. The Invincibles went unbeaten but there were many moments of jeopardy during the campaign and the team had to dig its heels in to achieve some gritty results like against Liverpool away, UTD away and Sp*rs away.
City have had everything thrust into their hands due to their wealthy, tyrannical benefactors. They’ve done very well with what they’ve received but a club with greater resources and wealth will always have a huge advantage as they can afford to pay high wages across their entire squad, attract players with high wages, appoint the best coaches and construct the best training facilities. Since they can afford the best players they can also sell off these players later while their value is still high hence why the net spend arguments will never hold up. Arsenal don’t get bankrolled by our owners, we almost exclusively spend what we actually make in revenue.
As for the ‘Red Cartel’ argument that City fans have started throwing around, let’s not forget that City were part of the EPL from its beginning. The 5 clubs that initially helped create the league were Everton, Sp*rs, Liverpool, Man UTD and Arsenal. Of those, 3 of them have had little or no success in winning the league. Why would the league conspire to only let Arsenal win a few and UTD win a lot while Liverpool misses out? And apparently City fans’ solution to this ‘Red Cartel’ is to have a planet destroying, migrant abusing, LGBQ-hating regime fund one club to establish its own monopoly on the league. Your solution is for the Premier League to become a grotesque parody of itself.
Your ‘victories’ will always be tainted and disrespected by the wider footballing public and we’re glad it winds you up so much. By the way, can you see the Red Cartel right now? Are they in the room with you?
Vish (AFC), Melbourne, Aus
TO THE COMMENTS! Are Man City boring? Should they care? Join the debate here.
Man City: The haters’ preferred choice of winners
An interesting article by John talking about the boredom of watching City romp to another title. I absolutely agree with the sentiment and have seen myself withdraw from Tennis, F1, Premier League and a few other sports where the results have become so mind-numbingly obvious, there is no literal point watching it.
I remember being a die hard F1 fan back in 2006 till the time the Vettel, Hamilton & now Verstappen domination started. I still continued till 2021, but now I’d rather watch paint dry than watch a min of F1. I don’t even do the highlights anymore, as there is no real point to watching a sport where the outcome is already done and dusted.
Coming to City, even as a United fan, I would prefer they win the title than any of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. Why? Because I don’t know a single person in and around me who supports City or even talks about them. So it doesn’t really matter, they can win the treble 3x and I would still be happier than if I saw Liverpool take 1 title. City do not matter to fans, and in a title race, they are other teams’ preferred choice. Not because anyone likes them, but just because people care the least about them.
Arsenal and Arteta winning the league would 200% mean that they made better moves and decisions than United, while proving how their players are betting. But lose again this season, and if by some fluke United win the FA Cup, we can easily claim to have had a better 2 years than the so-called title contenders at Arsenal! And this is the kind of mental gymnastics we fans chase to get a chance to banter, argue and discuss how our teams are better than theirs!
With City, who even cares anymore. There are no real old fans who I can argue with, or who would goad me with their title wins. They won the treble and it was a serene summer with not even 1 second of my mood being affected due to someone else winning.
Wanna know how it went when Liverpool won the title or the CL? It was horrendous. I had friends and family members roaming around with jerseys on, talking non stop about having the best players and managers, and the Barca comeback and what now. Even in Covid it was suffocating to see them win.
So, in conclusion, City are the haters’ choice to win the title. Ask any fan if they would rather see United win a title with Ten Hag, Arsenal with Arteta, Liv with Slot, Chelsea with Poch. Or would they just prefer if their team doesn’t win, Pep just takes all the trophies with him so no one else can win shit!
A
Jackson > Drogba
First off, I’m no Chelsea fan, and the title of this email is obviously a little tongue in cheek, but I think there’s a valid point to be made here. If you look at the important stats, Jackson has had a better start to his Chelsea career than Drogba had, and if you look at their respective team mates/managers/situations, that really should not be the case.
Drogba entered a team that had just finished second behind the invincibles, (who they knocked out of Europe) had a Champions League winning manager with Porto, had just scored 19 goals in Ligue Un and was surrounded by the crux of the team that would go onto dominate English football for the next couple of years. Also the 24mil that was spent on him was considerably higher, once adjusted for football inflation, than the 32 mil spent on Jackson.
Jackson (who is currently ahead in goals and tied in assists compared to Drogba’s first season,) entered a team that just finished 12th, has a manager who has won one French super cup and one French league with PSG, scored 12 goals in La Liga last season and is surrounded by players that Jamie Tartt might kindly describe as ‘poopy,’ (with the obvious exception of Palmer,) In fact, the more I make this point, the less my tongue is in my cheek.
Drogba of course is a prem legend, first African player to score 100 goals in ‘Our League,’ Champions League winner and everything else, but at the end of that season had 10 premiership goals, the next season he scored 12 (although he did boost his assists up to fifteen,) and Chelsea felt the need to sign Balon D’or winner Andriy Shevchenko. Fans of a certain age will remember how that turned out.
Chelsea are literally one of my most hated clubs under one of my most hated managers, it makes me sad to see either of them start winning again, but the amount of criticism levelled at this young man recently has been OTT to say the least. The current iteration of Chelsea are a mockery of the club, both on and off the pitch, that existed in 2004, yet Jackson has still hit more than Drogba managed in all but two of his nine seasons at the club. So yeah, my tongue has been firmly removed from my cheek now and I’m just gonna say it “Nicolas Jackson is greater than Didier Drogba.”
Andy (Guatemala)
(Well, he’s certainly better than Darwin Nunez – Ed)