Ange Postecoglou is on the brink of a milestone.
Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Newcastle United was his 58th Premier League game in charge of Tottenham Hotspur. That brings him level with Jose Mourinho as Spurs’ longest-serving manager of the post-Mauricio Pochettino era.
Spurs’ 2-2 draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers here last week was Postecoglou’s 57th league game, the one that pulled him ahead of Antonio Conte, who was in charge for only 56 — and for several of those, Conte was at home in Italy recovering from illness, so the true number is lower.
If Postecoglou makes it to the Emirates Stadium next Wednesday, that will be game number 59. He will be at the head of this pack, with 2021’s Nuno Espirito Santo (10) far behind him. Two figures from the pre-Pochettino past, Andre Villas-Boas (54) and Tim Sherwood (22), are also already in Postecoglou’s rear-view mirror.
You would be brave to bet on Postecoglou emulating Pochettino’s total of 202 Premier League games, but he is moving in that direction, one game at a time.
Yet it was another difficult day out on Saturday for Spurs. Postecoglou’s 58th league game was his 22nd defeat and 10th this season. This run will leave many fans wondering what exactly Tottenham have to show for their patience over the last season and a half.
Clearly, the league form has been worse under Postecoglou than it was under Mourinho or Conte. This is not a difficult case to prosecute: Mourinho’s Spurs took 95 points from his 58 games (1.64 points per game) and Conte’s Spurs took 105 points from 56 at 1.875 points per game. That last rate is normally enough for a top-four season. Postecoglou’s Spurs, in contrast, have 90 from 58, down at 1.55 per game. If you want to argue that the Postecoglou era is going nowhere, the evidence is right there for you.
Of course, if you think about this for more than a few seconds, you can find any number of reasons why Postecoglou has underperformed his predecessor’s results. Mourinho and Conte took over ready-made teams full of established senior players. Postecoglou has had to clear out the last remnants of that team and build a new one from scratch. Mourinho and Conte had peak Son Heung-min and Harry Kane up front every week. Postecoglou had to sell Kane and has had to eke the most from a declining Son.
Mourinho and Conte were brought in to deliver short-term results, no matter what the football looked like. The sum total of all this was one League Cup final reached by Mourinho and one fourth-place finish achieved by Conte.
Postecoglou came in to revamp the style of play, teaching a new approach more in tune with the traditions of the club. And that combination of the demanding style, the packed calendar and the thin squad has been a disaster for Spurs. Key players, the ones needed to make the football work, have missed long spells with muscle injuries.
GO DEEPER
'On a fair and even playing ground, Tottenham win that game' - analysing Postecoglou's post-match complaints
Throw in some extra bad luck, too — such as Guglielmo Vicario breaking his ankle and missing three months or a virus ripping through Spurs this week — and you get to situations like that on Saturday.
Tottenham came into this game without their first- and second-choice goalkeepers, first-choice centre-back pairing, first-choice left-back, and second-choice left-back (who can also cover at centre-back). Spurs played the second half with Brandon Austin in goal, Djed Spence at centre-back and Sergio Reguilon at left-back. If someone had told you a few weeks ago that you would be watching that trio, you would have thought this was an unusually timed money-spinning friendly.
Given all those mountains of mitigation, there was plenty to admire about this Spurs performance. They all worked hard. They had to ride their luck at times and there were moments at the end of the first half when Newcastle got good shots away with every attack. But Spurs dominated the second half and, with a bit of composure in the final third, they would have rescued a result. Frankly, this game went far better than you might have expected given it was already 2-1 at the break.
And so Tottenham stay in this strange limbo period they have been in for months. The league results are certainly bad: since they won 4-0 at Manchester City, they have won one in eight and that was at Southampton. But judgement on Postecoglou is still suspended.
There are good reasons for this. The availability crises Spurs have faced this season have made it hard to put out competitive teams. The fact the league season is a disaster does not mean the whole season is written off. Spurs have a Carabao Cup semi-final first leg this Wednesday. Win that and no one will care how far off the pace they are in the league. They are still in the Europa League, too, in a competitive position. There is plenty more to play for this season.
To sack Postecoglou now would still feel like ignoring the reality of the circumstances that he faced or the challenge of trying to play his football with so few available players. To sack him now, 58 games in, would risk Tottenham looking to the world like Eighteen Months FC, without the stomach or the patience to build anything or to navigate a few months of choppy waters.
You can just look at Newcastle United, who had their own injury crisis last season, shorn of the players they needed to cope with competing on multiple fronts. It led to a miserable run from December to March; 14 points from 14 games, the same core players run into the ground. Only at the end of the season when players came back did Newcastle look themselves again.
One year on they have a good chance of getting back into the Champions League.
Following that trajectory is the most optimistic anyone could be about Tottenham right now. A lot will have to go right for them to get there. Spurs proceed steadily through limbo for now, but there will have to be accountability in the end.
(Top photo: John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)