If points were handed out for irritability Tottenham would not be wallowing in midtable. Not with Ange Postecoglou setting the tone.
Getting narkier by the game, in a hurry to take umbrage, seemingly aghast there have not been more gushing reviews about his team’s performances.
On Saturday after beating Brentford, he was annoyed to find himself fielding questions about his goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario handling outside the penalty area and getting away with it.
‘Okay, look I guess we were lucky to get the result,’ he sighed with the sort of heavy sarcasm Pep Guardiola likes to deploy when press conferences are not to his liking.
Spurs had scored three and won deservedly so Postecoglou would rather have been discussing how well they had played, basking in acclaim for his thrilling style of football after a week with arrows fired in his direction in the wake of defeat in the North London derby.
Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou is cutting an increasingly irritated figure in recent weeks
Tottenham players such as James Maddison have admitted form has fluctuated this season
This weekend’s north London derby showed the differnce between having an attacking philosophy and a more pragmatic approach to see games out
Losing at home to Arsenal always tends to heighten the senses in N17. Postecoglou snapped tetchily afterwards about how he ‘always wins trophies in his second season’ and woke next day to headlines declaring the Ange Ball honeymoon to be over and the sound of Tottenham supporters growing uneasy about his unyielding commitment to such an attacking brand of football.
Inside the camp though, they were feeling hard done by. They had not played poorly and lost only narrowly to a very good team.
Cristian Romero thought it necessary to alert the world via a repost on social media to the fact Spurs had not seen fit to lay on a private jet to get him home sooner from international duty in South America.
Whether this was Romero’s excuse for being nudged aside and beaten in the air by Gabriel Maghalaes for the goal, his contribution to the debate on player welfare or simply him marking out his long run for an attempted move to Real Madrid remains to be seen.
None of the Spurs players had been at all keen to talk after losing to Arsenal but after scoring his first goal of the season against Brentford,
James Maddison told Australian broadcasters Optus Sport: ‘We lost to Arsenal and we dominated the game. They were resilient, they played long ball, they played for second balls. The football basics as I say.’
Maddison also said he had been pleased with his form all season albeit with no recognition because he has not been scoring and the team had not been winning. He wasn’t complaining, he was making the point, and the point was fair.
Ultimately everything comes to be viewed through results. Increasingly, there’s a race to judgment after every single game as part of a relentless cycle of analysis across many different platforms.
It must make it a more confusing time than ever to be ensconced in the manager’s office at Tottenham where attacking style is supposed to count for everything based on something that happened all those decades ago. And yet only to a point.
But is Tottenham’s all-out attacking style of football feasable in the long run? Does Postecoglou have a plan B?
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has shown the club how to be resilient and win tough
Only if you’re winning and winning and winning. And that sort of form is very difficult in the Premier League, especially if you are committed to playing an open brand of football without paying the salaries to command the very best players in the competition, which means the very best players in the world.
Once you’re not winning consistently then that all-out attacking style is fine but where’s the Plan B? That’s what people demand to know. And the demand for Plan B is effectively code for a demand to surrender principles and put victory above all else.
For years under Arsene Wenger, Arsenal played some of the most fluent and attractive football seen in the modern era.
It made them one of the world’s most popular teams and created their enormous global fanbase but when the billionaire owners changed the Premier League landscape, the pretty football did not go down so well without the same degree of success.
Now, under Mikel Arteta they can be easy on the eye but are moreover a team looking to win and prepared to do what it takes to get the result.
In the big games they might be closer to George Graham’s Arsenal than Wenger’s and few hardcore fans will complain that they are no longer the best ticket in town if they win something big.
The best ticket in town is to see Postecoglou’s Spurs because they can transform any old mundane looking fixture into a nerve-shredding adrenaline ride. Little wonder he appears exhausted when the final whistle goes. And thus we might forgive him his irascibility.
The best ticket in town is to see Postecoglou’s Spurs because they can transform any old mundane looking fixture into a nerve-shredding adrenaline ride
Five things I learned this week…
New Champion League’s format hits lukewarm note
UEFA have successfully captured the essence of pre-season friendlies with their new format for the Champions League. A blur of games, hard to keep on top of as they pop up at different times on different days on different channels with an almost complete absence of jeopardy. As first impressions go that’s all a bit tepid. It might come to the boil somewhere near Christmas but don’t expect all these extra games to serve up much beyond the same old names once we get around to spring.
West Brom’s Maja could finally be fulfilling potential
Josh Maja is thriving at West Bromwich Albion with six goals in six games. London-born Maja is 25 and has never quite fulfilled the potential on display when he first broke through at Sunderland.
He went to Bordeaux in France, had loan spells at Fulham and Stoke, and his first season at The Hawthorns was disrupted by injury. This season he has not looked back since a hat-trick on the opening day. He scored the only goal against Plymouth on Saturday and Carlos Corberan’s team are top of the Championship.
West Bromwich Albion’s Josh Maja could well be fulfilling his potential having enjoyed a fine start to the new season
Clemence revelling in manager’s role at Barrow
Stephen Clemence is making a splendid start to his new job as manager of Barrow, top of League Two after seven games and with an interesting couple of fixtures ahead this week.
On Tuesday, Clemence will take his team to Chelsea in the Carabao Cup and then on Saturday to Gillingham, the club level on points who sacked him in the summer after less than six months in charge.
Stephen Clemence is making a splendid start to his new job as manager of Barrow, top of League Two
Family matters for England’s interim boss Carsley
England’s interim boss Lee Carsley took a break from his scouting duties to see son Callum making his debut for Nuneaton Town, the latest incarnation of the club formed after the latest demise of Nuneaton Borough. They are playing home matches at nearby Bedworth Town and won 7-0 against Allexton and New Parks in Midland League One.
England’s boss Lee Carsley took time off to watch his son play football for Nuneaton Town
Roy Hodgson’s (right) trusty assistant, Ray Lewington (left), has plunged into his third spell as caretaker manager of MK Dons
Hodgson’s former lieutenant Lewington back to help son at MK Dons
Former England coach Ray Lewington is back on the touchline. Roy Hodgson’s trusty assistant through various roles until their departure from Crystal Palace in February is helping his son Dean, who is now a player-coach and plunged into his third spell as caretaker manager of Milton Keynes Dons when Mike Williamson left abruptly for Carlisle last week. The Lewingtons were tracksuited on the touchline during Saturday’s draw with Doncaster Rovers, who played for 80 minutes with 10 men at the Stadium MK.