Former Tottenham manager Tim Sherwood has declared there will be ‘carnage’ if his former club crash out of the Europa League against AZ Alkmaar on Thursday, as he gave his verdict on the future of manager Ange Postecoglou.
Speaking exclusively to Football365 with Foot Italia, Sherwood has backed Tottenham to overturn a 1-0 first leg deficit in their last-16 tie, as he suggested the criticism will reach breaking point for Postecoglou and Spurs chairman Daniel Levy if their trophy hopes end for another season.
“It will be carnage if they go out on Thursday night, there’s no doubt about that,” Sherwood told Football365 with Foot Italia.
“This game is everything for the football club. Their whole season revolves around it as they are very unlikely to qualify for Europe via the Premier League position as there is too much catching up to do.
“They are 1-0 down against a team they should be beating. Yes, AZ Alkmaar did brilliantly to win the first leg, but the quality of the Eredivisie isn’t great and Tottenham have to be beating them at home and getting into the quarter-finals.
“I think they will get through to the next round, I really do. The players coming back to fitness now have to turn up and they have to do at them a million miles an hour from the start. They have to deliver now.
“If you were going to offer any manager a squad to work with at the start of this competition, they would all have picked Tottenham’s squad, so they have to fancy their chances of winning it.”
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“Of course, the best players don’t always win, but if they are playing anything like they can play, they will win this tie against AZ Alkmaar and they will win the trophy and qualify for next season’s Champions League.
“If that happens, this will suddenly become an absolutely magnificent season for Tottenham and there will be a statue of Ange outside the ground as the manager who ended the club’s trophy drought.”
Sherwood, who was Tottenham manager during the 2013/14 season, has insisted the pressure that will pile onto Postecoglou if his side go out of the Europa League should not lead to his exit as manager, as he insisted the constant managerial changes overseen by Spurs chairman Daniel Levy has not been a successful policy.
Nuno Espirito Santo is now thriving at Nottingham Forest after his reign as Tottenham manager lasted just 17 games in charge in 2021, with serial winners Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte also failing to bring success to Spurs during their time at the helm.
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Now Sherwood as urged Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy to give Postecoglou time to build a winning team, after a season that has seen his squad decimated by injuries.
“You can’t keep hiring and firing managers at the rate Tottenham have done,” he added.
“There was a cloud hanging over Tottenham for a few years due to the style of football managers like Nuno, Mourinho and Conte were playing. That’s not a criticism of the fans as they want to see attacking football, but look what those managers have done since and you can see it is a style of football that can work.
“I look at Nuno and what he is doing at Nottingham Forest and it’s incredible. He got run out of town quickly at Tottenham, so who knows what he would have done if he had time at Spurs, but the fans wanted a different type of football and that’s what they get with Ange.
“Everyone is getting entertained. There are goals at both ends. He played a high line when his team went down nine men against Chelsea and everyone applauded them off the pitch. Postecoglou was is a breath of fresh air, but it has been tougher this season.
“Is he fortunate to still be there? The reason he is still there is he did so well last season. He does something different than the Spurs manager who went before him and that’s exactly why the club employed him, but the injuries he has had, especially to his centre-backs this season, have been a big problem.
“The way he wants to play, he needs centre-backs with pace and he still wants to play that same way and he has stuck to his guns on the style of play. So give Ange time, see if they can win the Europa League this season.
“In saying that, we all know that if they go out against AZ Alkmaar at this stage of the competition, there will be a lot of noise around the club and it will be carnage for the manager and the chairman.”