There’s been a lot of fan reaction to Ange Postecoglou’s reactions to the press after Tottenham Hotspur’s 1-0 loss at home to Arsenal in the first North London Derby of the season. Ange was asked by a Sky Sports reporter after the match about his record of winning titles and trophies in his second season with a club, but kept pulling the microphone away from Ange before he had a chance to speak. This clearly irritated the Spurs boss, and he responded rather tetchily to the exchange.
“Am I going to answer the question or are you going to keep asking it? Absolutely and I’ll correct myself, I don’t usually win things, I always win things in my second year, nothing’s changed.
“Well I’ve just said it now. I don’t say things unless I believe them.”
Strangely, fans have taken this statement as Ange making a guarantee that Tottenham will win silverware this season, and using it as something like a rhetorical cudgel now that Spurs have taken just four points from its first four matches of the season.
I disagree with this framing, and here’s why. First, Ange is correct about winning things in his second year at a club — up to this point, he always has. That’s not a prediction, that’s history. Postecoglou is also a person with an enormous amount of self-belief in his system, his tactics, and his ability as a manager to get the best out of his players.
But that’s not the same thing as a guarantee. For starters, what else is he going to say in this situation? He’s fresh off a disappointing loss to the second-best team in the league who also happens to be Spurs’ biggest rivals, and he’s dealing with a reporter that’s annoying him immediately after the match. I’d be grumpy about that too. He’s making a bold statement, but it’s less about what Spurs are going to do and more about what he has accomplished at every step of his coaching career up to this point. His record is right there, he’s just pointing to it.
Now, is he setting expectations too high? I suppose you can argue that, if you’re a pessimist. But Ange is not guaranteeing Spurs are going to win a domestic Cup or the Europa League or even the Premier League title, he’s continuing to do what he’s always done — set conditions of belief for himself and his players to accomplish what nobody else thinks can be accomplished. Likewise, he’s not going to tell a reporter — or anyone else — that fans shouldn’t expect Spurs to win something this season. Imagine the reaction if he were to say that!
Let’s not forget that this is the worst start to a Premier League season since 2015-16 when Spurs lost their first match and drew the next three, taking three points from their first four matches under Mauricio Pochettino. Spurs went on to make a serious title challenge that season, finishing (irritatingly) third in a two-horse race, one of their best ever seasons in modern history. Does that mean Spurs will do something similar this season? Of course not, but the season is long, form is temporary, and the things Spurs are struggling with now are not necessarily the things that they will struggle with down the road.
Winning things is hard. No manager would ever guarantee that their team will win something because that sets an impossible expectation where anything less is considered failure. But fans getting mad that Postecoglu is “guaranteeing” a trophy while trying to keep his squad motivated for a long season ahead on the back of two straight losses in tough games says more about the fans than it does about Postecoglou.