Former Tottenham defender Eric Dier once claimed that Ange Postecoglou does no tactical training at Tottenham. The ex-England star briefly played under the Australian at Spurs before joining Bayern Munich in January 2024.
Postecoglou’s tactical approach has been scrutinised amid Spurs’ inconsistency this season. The North Londoners have at times been criticised for being too open, toothless in attack, and error-prone defensively.
Dier was a peripheral figure during his time playing for Postecoglou, making only four appearances during the first half of last season. However, he was present for training sessions and divulged that the 59-year-old barely works on tactics.
The 31-year-old then slightly contradicted that claim, though, insisting that Postecoglou works on “the way he wants to play” from Monday to Friday.
"Interestingly, he really doesn't do any tactical work (in training)," Dier told Gary Neville on The Overlap last April.
"What he does is, every single training drill from Monday to Friday is drawn up to represent the way that he wants to play.
"[Antonio] Conte, I could do it blind, but that was a lot of tactical work Monday to Friday, a lot of 10 versus zero, walkthroughs. You were so well drilled, it would be engrained in you."
Postecoglou was quick to shut down Dier’s claim, insisting that Spurs’ training focuses on the way they approach matches.
The Spurs head coach said a few days later: "It's probably something you'd have to ask Eric, I don't know what you mean by tactical work. Everything we do is geared on how we are going to play our football, so for me by extension is tactical work.
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"Whether that's on us, or whether it's on the opposition. In fact I would probably say we don't do anything apart from tactical work.
"That's all we do every day. If we're working on our fitness, we're still trying to play our football.
"But I haven't seen the interview so I'm not sure what he's referencing. If you're talking about do we do training where we're standing around and working on how we're going to stop an opposition, how we're going to break down, no we don't do that.
"But I don't think that's the only kind of tactical work that exists. I think anyone who trains with us will tell you that all we do is train the way we play. Maybe that's not tactical work, I don't know!"