Preseason is a time of optimism and hope for football fans, and nowhere is that hope more pronounced than at Tottenham Hotspur. Buoyed by good preseason friendly performances and the exciting emergence of several highly-talented youth players, Spurs are flying, and the expectations for an improvement under Ange Postecoglou in year two of his tenure are high.
And that’s not just the fan perception — the players sense it too. In an interview with Football.London today, Dejan Kulusevski gave comments that suggest the team is training and operating with a different set of assumptions to last season — most of the team is now familiar with Postecoglou, his philosophy, and the way he wants his team to play. Though last season had its challenges, particularly on the injury front, the club remained uncompromising in its playing style and were able to qualify for the Europa League, finishing fifth in the table.
According to Kulusevski, this season is where the real work begins, and the players are picking up on it. Year one was about the vibes. Year two is about the specifics and tactical minutae.
“[This club] has to be, has to be [challenging at the top], and I think we showed glimpses of that last year, but we have to do it for one whole year, I think that’s maybe the harder part of it, to not play good for maybe a month and then you go down a little bit.
“I think you have to do it the whole year, like the other teams, like Man City and Arsenal did it last year, so that is what we are trying to train. I noticed already a little bit of change in the training, and we are very, very focused on doing much better than last year.
“I noticed that it’s much more about how we’re playing, and every exercise has been thinking a lot of making the players understand how we want to play.
“Maybe last year was much more just play, you know, play and do your things, but now, it’s much more...they’ve been thinking a lot about training sessions and trying to make everyone understand what they want from them in the team.”
This tracks with what we know about Ange Postecoglou’s previous managerial stints at other clubs. Although Celtic was an outlier (winning the SPL in Ange’s first season), there and at Yokohama Marinos, Postecoglou’s focus in his first season was first establishing a mentality at the club and trying to instill basic core concepts into the squad. The second year is when a lot of the more technical and tactical elements got added in, once the players were comfortable with the basic contours of Ange-Ball. Marinos is also where Postecoglou saw his biggest one-season improvement, taking his team from initial relegation worries and a 12th place finish in year one to winning the J-League with a goal differential of +30 in 2019. Postecoglou also showed a dramatic improvement in year 2 at Celtic once his principles were established.
So it’s interesting to read Kulusevski’s comments about “just play, you know, play and do your things” in this context. Postecoglou clearly has a long-term plan in mind for how he wants to develop this Tottenham team. Deki is noticing that the work is different this season — perhaps more granular, more specific, more tactical, because the stakes are higher as are the expectations. That should get everyone excited by what’s possible in year 2 of Ange-Ball in North London.
Deki also gave some interesting answers about his own play and tactical evolution under Postecoglou, saying that he’s had, and continues to, adjust his playing style to the demands of his manager’s tactics.
“A little bit, of course, because you have to do what the manager wants, because the team has a clear path in how they want to play. Of course, [as] a winger, you see less of the ball, but you have to be ready all the time to go in the space and put early balls in to cross and always be ready to score goals – while in the middle, you’re much more involved, so I have to [adapt], of course, when I play.
“I have to look where I am on the pitch and what I can do for the team, but I have to stay aware of everything, because it can change within a game also. I maybe start as a midfielder, then you go out to be a winger, you know. Last year, I finished the last game as a striker, you’ve got to be ready for everything.”
Tottenham emulating Yokohama Marinos’ dramatic path to a league title this season under Postecoglou is perhaps unrealistic. But we have enough evidence of how Big Ange works with his squads to anticipate that Tottenham could very well be primed for a significant improvement this season, if the pieces all fall into place. Spurs are still working in the transfer market to bring in a few new players, and have established a core of very young players with high ceilings that should continue to raise the ceiling of what this club can accomplish. And if Kulusevski’s comments are any indication, the pattern is clear.