The simple tactical change Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglu must make immediately to avoid sack
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These are some pretty dark times at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Under Ange Postecoglou, they have failed to win in six straight Premier League games and have slumped as far as 15th place. They haven’t finished a league season in a worse position since they were relegated in 1977. The mood is sour, the fans are chanting for the chairman’s head, and many pundits expect Postecoglou to be sacked at any moment.
Under normal circumstances, the manager’s position would be pretty much untenable at this point. Whether Spurs can justifiably expect to challenge for a Champions League place every year or not, that is the bar that has been set and the club are currently considerably closer to the relegation battle than a European campaign. But then again, this has been a very strange season.
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Hide AdThis is a Spurs side that has scored more goals than any team in the top flight, save for league leaders Liverpool. A team which has one foot in the EFL Cup final after keeping a clean sheet at Anfield, but which concedes far too many and allowed the same opponents to score six just a few weeks before.
Despite which, they are also a team who had the tightest away defence in the division until they shipped three in a harrowing first half against Everton on Sunday – and all of that comes before you consider their laundry list of injuries. In other words, it isn’t as simple as saying that Spurs are bad, nor is it straightforward to work out whether Postecoglou has been poor or simply unfortunate this season. So, should the Australian be sacked, or should Spurs keep the faith?
Why is it all going wrong for Ange Postecoglou?
Clearly, Postecoglou has been dealt a bad hand this season. The sheer volume of injuries that Tottenham have endured has been breathtaking. Key players including Guglielmo Vicario, Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero have been out for extended periods, and now Dominic Solanke and Brennan Johnson have been added to the injury list as well.
But as any poker player knows, the quality of the cards in your hand isn’t all that matters – it’s how you play them. There, Postecoglou seems to have made mistakes, although it is his great misfortune as a manager that folding simply isn’t an option.
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Hide AdAs he attempts to negotiate the long list of absentees, Postecoglou has chopped and change formation and set-up repeatedly, with apparent adverse effects. Sunday’s 3-2 loss to Everton provided a fine example – presumably feeling forced to shuffle things around thanks to fresh injuries, he lined Spurs up in a relatively unfamiliar 3-4-3, and they struggled to control the midfield with a man missing or to maintain their shape at the back.
The team as a whole look uncertain of their positioning, unclear on when to press and when to hold back. The back three looked like they weren’t sure of their assignments and hesitated in one-on-one situations or when an opposing player took up possession in front of them. The midfield, undermanned and still trying to press hard despite their reduced numbers, allowed Everton in behind too easily.
The second goal, scored by Iliman Ndiaye, encapsulated the issue neatly. Both Archie Gray and Pape Matar Sarr pressed up to challenge Ndiaye and Idrissa Gueye in Everton’s half, but because there was nobody behind them, they gave their opponents an easy one-two to unlock a full quarter of the field. All Ndiaye had to do from there was to run through an acre of empty space, beat his man one-on-one and score. One could criticise Gray for showing a hint of teenage naivete in pushing up too far, but the blame can equally be placed at Postecoglou’s feet. These were his tactics, the players weren’t prepared for them, and they didn’t work. That’s the coach’s responsibility.
In the second half, Postecoglou switched back to a more familiar 4-2-3-1 and the performance immediately improved, even if it didn’t improve sufficiently to rescue a point from the game. This season, Postecoglou has switched between 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 frequently and often during games, with the 3-4-3 adopted for the first time this season. It has felt like a failure to pick a lane, and perhaps what could be viewed as versatility really just nurtures the team’s inconsistency.
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Hide AdIt may be worth noting that Spurs have enjoyed more success with the 4-3-3 - when playing 4-2-3-1, their opponents have scored more often and earned more expected goals on average, with the impact on Tottenham’s attack being negligible. The apparent tactical uncertainty may have something to do with the role of James Maddison - when playing as a number ten in the less successful 4-2-3-1, he has scored five and set up three more. When playing in a deeper, more traditional midfield role in the 4-3-3, he has scored three and assisted one. As their top scorer so far this season, it is understandable that the fact that his personal success is almost inversely proportional to the success of the team would cloud the issue.
There are a number of Premier League teams - including Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion, who have switched formations more freely, so it is not fair to say that tactical flexibility is necessarily to the detriment of the team, but with Spurs the damage that changing formations has done to positioning and the coherency of the press seems more readily apparent. Postecoglou simply doesn’t appear to have prepared his players for the fluidity of their roles as well as other coaches, and it may be a personal weakness that he is playing in to.
His tactical style also presents unique challenges given the sheer volume of injuries. His maximalist, hard-and-high pressing methods require players to burn more energy and run more yards. Trying to do that in midst of the busiest part of the domestic calendar, when there are so few opportunities to rotate, has proven challenging, and while one can scarcely blame Postecoglou for persisting with ideas which have worked well for him, one wonders whether there was another direction he could have gone to reduce the workload during such a difficult spell. He has stuck with some of his strategic guns but not others, and may have got his priorities wrong in the process.
He has got plenty right, of course. In scoring 45 goals so far this season despite all the injuries, Postecoglou has proven that he can make a team lethal going forward - but the defence was shaky even before the injuries began to mount, and the midfield can leave the back line exposed. Postecoglou has shown both his strengths and his flaws this season, and not all of the problems can be dismissed as the consequence of an injury crisis.
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Hide AdIs Daniel Levy to blame instead?
Of course, even if Postecoglou has failed to navigate a tricky situation as well as he might have, he isn’t entirely to blame. The lack of depth in Spurs’ squad has been exposed in somewhat brutal fashion over the past couple of months, and the failure to sign players that Postecoglou appeared to be begging for – especially a central midfielder – may have contributed to the coach’s apparent inability to have his plans executed as he wants across the season.
And now we’re in the midst of a winter transfer window in which it was glaringly obvious that Spurs needed to strengthen, and only one of the clear requirements – a new goalkeeper – has arrived. That may change, and negotiating in January is notoriously challenging, but Levy’s reputation for delaying transfers to haggle over the terms and conditions precedes him. Too often, Spurs have missed out on the player they needed because Levy wasn’t satisfied with the price, or they have arrived so late in the window that their impact is reduced and the time required to bed them in is extended too far into the season.
This squad is a reflection of Levy’s style as a chairman. It isn’t quite right to say that it was built on the cheap but corners have been cut, and as such it is less competitive than it could have been. The starting eleven is strong, but the depth is lacking, and Postecoglou doesn’t have the tools that he feels he needs to succeed. The squad is the result of counting pennies and ignoring the club’s fundamental footballing needs. It’s better to be too cautious than to spend recklessly, but the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of parsimoniousness.
Levy must shoulder his fair share of the blame for the current debacle, and the fans calling for him to go have a point – the problem is that it’s highly unlikely that Levy will fire himself. Instead, if he wants to shake things up, it’s Postecoglou who will go. The question is whether Levy still has faith in the Australian’s style of play and long-term vision, and whether he believes that results will improve when he has access to a full squad again – and, naturally, whether Postecoglou still has the faith of the dressing room. His avuncular style was perfectly popular when he first made the move to Spurs, but there are only so many defeats a team can take before the good vibes are gone.
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Hide AdAll of which leaves Spurs at a crossroads. If they are to turn things around and push for the top four again next season, then Levy either needs to fire Postecoglou and find a manager who fits the squad, or to back Postecoglou to the hilt by signing the players he wants even if the damage to the bottom line might make the owners wince. Trying to go down the middle route and leaving Postecoglou in limbo, half-supported and attempting to drag an incomplete squad up the league, would surely end in failure.
For Postecoglou to prove that he’s the right man to take this team forward and that he deserves the backing of his chairman, however, he needs to find a settled system which works for the players he has, one in which they are comfortable, confident and well-drilled. The chopping and changing has likely made a challenging situation even harder and undermined the team’s capacity to put in consistent, coherent performances. There is plenty of blame to go around, but something has to give – and quickly.
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