The Excuse Ange Postecoglou Must Banish At Tottenham Hotspur
The narrative around Tottenham Hotspur has focused on transfers for at least the last three decades.
Whether the team is high or low the one consistency in the white half of north London is that how much money the team has or hasn’t splashed on talent will be the prevailing discourse.
Sometimes these discussions about spending have gotten so serious they’ve ended up in the courtroom.
Ex-chairman Alan Sugar was so annoyed about an article in December 1999 that accused him of being “miserly” he sued the Daily Mail and won £100,000.
Speaking after the libel trial, the man who’d written the article, Jeff Powell, tried to justify his claim.
"I just felt [former manager] George Graham deserved an injection of cash and if two terrific players were brought in there could have been a transformation and the story of Tottenham could have been different now,” he said.
Lord Sugar disagreed emphatically, of course. ”Every single penny generated in that football club is devoted to buying players," he said after the court ruling.
"We don't have a separate pot for the chairman's heated seat in the directors' box. Everything that is surplus goes to buying players and paying their wages."
A quarter of a century on the debate over investment at Tottenham Hotspur hasn’t moved on much from the late 1990s.
The latest person to trot out the same tired lines is former Spurs captain Hugo Lloris. From the comfort of his new home in Los Angeles, he told the BBC he blamed limited transfer activity for the lack of trophies arriving in North London.
Specifically, he felt that between 2017 and 2019, as Spurs prepared to move to a brand new stadium, there was a well-documented shortage of new talent meant they were unable to seize the initiative as a result.
"I am not the kind of guy that looks backwards," the now LAFC goalkeeper told BBC Sport.
"Everything I do I try to have no regrets. At that time we did our best. We brought the club to a level that it didn’t used to be at.
"We didn’t miss much but when we reach this standard in terms of performance and results, the club was probably also focused on the new stadium. It meant there was a restriction in terms of investment. At that time, the others, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City invested a bit more than us in the top players and in the end, it makes a difference.
"I still believe we were close but at the same time, we missed a bit. This question is good because the only thing when I look backwards, I just don’t know how things would have been if we had stayed one or two seasons more at White Hart Lane.”
A Change With Ange?
Supporters on the whole tend to want to see their club’s spending money on transfers even those who follow the most established successful outfits.
Maybe it comes down to a fear that trying to improve the existing talent at a manager’s disposal isn’t enough to compete with a rival investing large sums in shiny new buys.
But some Tottenham Hotspur fans must surely be sick of this relentless debate about transfers, after all, there is no evidence it has helped the team.
And you have to also wonder what Ange Postecoglou makes of it.
Part of what won Spurs fans' hearts at the start of last season was the positive attitude taken by the Australian coach. He didn’t moan or gripe about transfers like Antonio Conte or Jose Mourinho did in the past.
This summer so far Spurs have acquired Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall, but the refreshingly different sentiment from Postecoglou is that stockpiling further talent is not essential to his feeling positive about the club’s chances.
“We've got a strategy in place about what we want to do,” Postecoglou explained.
“I'm really happy with the two lads we've brought in, both obviously very talented but more importantly really ambitious. They're not here to ease their way in. They want to play and I think that's great.
“They've brought a good energy to the group and no doubt there will be a couple more additions but I'm comfortable with where we're at.”
As always with transfers, and Spurs is far from unique in this, it’s a question of quality over quantity.
From Sergei Rebrov to Tanguy Ndombele there have been plenty of occasions over the past 30 years that Tottenham has spent big on a player who’s failed.
So it will be refreshing for Spurs fans to hear that Postecoglou is focused on bringing in only the players he thinks are right and not grabbing any available stars.
"This time of year it is pretty hard for supporters because they don't have all the information,” he explained.
“It’s fair to say there is plenty of misinformation out there, so it's pretty hard to gauge.
"We are working hard towards bringing players in and it's a process you sometimes have to be patient with. But in terms of what we've set out to do, that's still the plan, and you have to stay disciplined.
"Sometimes the timings don't work out. it doesn't happen as quickly as you want and you don't get them in the ideal time.
"But it's really important you stay disciplined through that and not run off and chase other things.”
Hopefully, under Postecoglou this focus and positivity will mean age-old Spurs excuses about transfers or spending money will be banished for good.
