inews

Tottenham 1-2 Newcastle (Solanke 4’|Gordon 6’, Isak 38’)

TOTTENAM HOTSPUR STADIUM — Ange Postecoglou has become that rarest of breeds in Tottenham managers – the fall guy refusing to fall. With defeat to Newcastle, expect the relentless noise around his future to ramp up a notch but try to cut out the bluster.

The illness that ripped through the training ground this week – no lasagnas in sight – might have been a turning point, but not for the reasons you would expect. It is the essence of Postecoglou at his barnstorming best, all-guns-blazing, youngsters on the bench, backs against the wall and the world.

There is just one flaw to all this – Tottenham Hotspur lost another Premier League football match, their 10th of the season, against the same outfit who inflicted the first. They have not claimed three points at home since the Aston Villa match on 3 November.

Bug-ridden, belligerent they may have been – they went down fighting. In that light, this was an admirable display of defiance and resilience which quite possibly deserved a point. But down they went, yet again.

Postecoglou insisted afterwards that he was “hugely proud” given the circumstances. “I’m just shattered the boys didn’t get results we deserved… if that was a different day and it was an even and fair playing ground we would have won that game.”

For his part he has repeatedly said he is “sick of excuses”. That risks him being judged without context.

The first six minutes were both the best and worst of Spurs and the absolute nadir of the handball rule. Lucas Bergvall was at the centre of it all – an unchallenged surge into the final third leading to Pedro Porro’s cross, headed in by Dominic Solanke ahead of the returning Sven Botman.

Not 120 seconds had passed at the other end when Bergvall’s cross would have found a teammate, had it not been intercepted by Joelinton’s arm. In a “natural position” – per the VAR’s statement – or not. The advantage is unmistakeable – and ludicrously unfair.

All that remained was for Bruno Guimaraes to tee up Anthony Gordon, a forward with the ice coolness an onlooking Thomas Tuchel will have been accustomed to in his winter break in Bavaria. Work started this week for the England manager and he must have been delighted by both early goals, Gordon’s strike his 17th in 23 games against the Big Six since his arrival two years ago.

Dan Burn was equally fortunate not to receive a second yellow for a handball that was nevertheless given by referee Andrew Madley. Newcastle’s second, at least, was incontestable. Inevitable even, Jacob Murphy having repeatedly exploited the space created by Djed Spence (at left-back) being dragged into the middle.

Murphy’s cross took a touch off Radu Dragusin on its way to Alexander Isak for the tap-in. Eddie Howe might venture it could have been more had Anthony Gordon been given a penalty for a collision with Dejan Kulusevski.

Now, to the mitigation. Whenever it appears as though this Spurs squad cannot possibly get any more vulnerable, it does. Two of the back four were out of position. Brandon Austin, who turns 26 on Wednesday, was in goal for his debut and just his 24th professional game; he deserves huge credit for his performance.

Dragusin, one of the players who Postecoglou said had “got off his sick bed” to play, was replaced by Sergio Reguilon at half-time, forcing Spence to centre-back. The Romanian was the last man standing after injuries to Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Ben Davies. Postecoglou finished the afternoon with no available centre-backs whatsoever.

How is it possible to judge any coach in those circumstances? In the boardroom, is one answer. With the punctuality of Michael Buble thawing out for Christmas, we are fast approaching Ryan Mason season.

The notable difference is that Postecoglou retains enough goodwill for his relationship with Daniel Levy not to have broken down. Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho and Harry Redknapp all left after a point of no return in that respect.

Mauricio Pochettino departed with Spurs 14th in the table, in November, a position not dissimilar to where they are likely to be after the weekend’s other results. The Australian is the only Spurs manager to last a full campaign since Pochettino in 2018-19. The pattern is familiar – and painful.

Levy’s conundrum, whether to stick or twist, does not usually come so early in the year, nor with such an unprecedented list of absentees – including two world-class centre-backs, a left-back, two forwards and their best midfielder.

Then again, Should Liverpool rock up and put another half a dozen goals past his team, this season could effectively be over by 10pm on Wednesday night, or at least its last serious hopes extinguished. Spurs remain in the Europa League and FA Cup – both long, arduous journeys which this fragile squad will struggle to sustain.

What complicates his decision further is that results were so mixed in the second half of last season, which discounts the idea that this is a crisis borne of injuries and other various misfortunes alone. It has become increasingly difficult to assess where the genuine caveats end and the reality checks have to begin.

And yet the highs are so mountainous, when Postecoglou’s methods really take hold, that it would take a seriously shrewd, well-timed and successful appointment to make sacking him now the right decision. Levy does not have a track record of those. It is time for the unthinkable – patience, at least until the end of the season.

We are just a few days into 2025 and already Tottenham Hotspur are coming to terms with losing another key player to a long-term injury. Happy New Year, Ange.

Destiny Udogie is the newest member of the walking wounded club, joining six teammates in an increasingly crowded Hotspur Way treatment room after pulling up against Wolves last Sunday.

It is rotten luck for the 22-year-old, who has now suffered five injuries (four to his hamstrings) in a season and a half at Tottenham. The Italian missed the Euros last summer after undergoing surgery to repair a torn quadriceps.

Early reports indicate that he could be unavailable for between six and 10 weeks.

His absence also exacerbates Ange Postecoglou’s defensive crisis at the worst possible time with fixtures against the Premier League’s two most in-form teams coming up in the next six days.

Spurs face Newcastle on Sunday and Liverpool in a Carabao Cup semi-final next Wednesday. A makeshift back five of whom Pedro Porro is the only regular, will be tasked with keeping Alexander Isak and Mo Salah quiet. Not ideal.

Unfortunately, Udogie’s misfortune was entirely predictable and not just because of his historic fitness record.

Tottenham’s game against Newcastle will be their 29th of the campaign and they have roughly played a fixture every four days since August.

Fifa’s response to long-held concerns over an overcrowded calendar was to invent a Club World Cup in the off-season, an idea that nobody from players to coaches, fans and broadcasters seems to care about.

Uefa are no angels either, after needlessly bolting additional games into their competitions for no reason other than revenue.

Football’s governing bodies warrant some blame for Udogie’s latest setback but it can be carved up and shared around.

Tottenham’s failure to buy a specialist left-back in the summer transfer window seemed risky at the time; it looks nothing short of negligent now.

Udogie is the only left-back that Postecoglou trusts. Ben Davies, who is also nursing a hamstring injury of his own, lacks the dynamism and attacking edge that Postecoglou requires and has instead been repurposed as centre-back cover.

Sergio Reguilon is still knocking about but only because there were no takers for him last summer. The 28-year-old, who will leave for free in June, has spent the last two seasons on loan at Atletico Madrid, Manchester United and Brentford.

He marked his first competitive Spurs appearance in over two-and-a-half years against United last month with an Instagram post captioned: “Look mum, I played a football game yesterday.” Top bantz from one of Tottenham’s many transfer flops.

This situation could hardly have been unforeseen. Udogie missed 10 Premier League games last season due to muscle injuries and that was without having to play European football on top.

His susceptibility to pulls and strains allied to Spurs qualifying for the Europa League meant that the club should have prioritised buying a new left-back.

For some reason, they didn’t and Postecoglou has a right to feel like he wasn’t properly backed. Dominic Solanke aside, Spurs bought young players with future seasons in mind more so than the current one. That policy may help the club in the long-term but it hasn’t helped the manager in the short-term.

Postecoglou himself could have done things differently. Tottenham’s inability to integrate academy prospects into the first-team and haphazard squad building in recent years forced the Australian to name a reduced 23-man squad for the Europa League to comply with Uefa’s stringent “homegrown” rules.

However, he decided to pick Djed Spence as the fall guy, depriving him of full-back cover on both sides for Spurs’ first six games in Europe. Spence would have been infinitely more useful in those matches than Timo Werner has been.

That call resulted in Udogie playing more European minutes – 258 in total – than he might have done while also limiting Spence’s game time, ensuring he was less ready to step in for Premier League matches.

Postecoglou’s reluctance to use Spence prior to the last few weeks has looked like a misstep given the 24-year-old has acquitted himself well, a foolish red card at the City Ground on Boxing Day aside.

Udogie and Porro have both suffered from dips in form and naturally looked fatigued having started 18 and 16 Premier League games respectively. Spence has only started three, his first against Southampton on 15 December. Why has his chance been so long coming?

Postecoglou’s questionable squad management has placed a further strain on players already operating at the upper limits of their physical capacity.

Being a Spurs defender is arguably one of the toughest jobs in the Premier League given how many high-intensity sprints they make, whether underlapping or overlapping runs forward or high-speed chases back.

While it is unfortunate that Spurs have lost four defenders – Udogie, Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero and Davies – to hamstring injuries at the same time, it’s not purely incidental either.

Can such a relentless approach work for a team competing in what is widely regarded to be the most intense domestic league on the planet and on four different fronts? Increasingly, it seems like the answer is no.

Last January, Postecoglou acknowledged that the hamstring injuries Spurs were suffering then were “a consequence of the way we play and the way we train”.

He added: “When we get a more robust and deeper squad, we’ll be able to overcome it.”

Twelve months on and Spurs don’t have a significantly deeper squad and don’t seem to be any more robust either. Unless reinforcements arrive quickly in this window or Postecgolou tweaks things, they will remain hamstrung by pinging hamstrings.

Tottenham have always been reluctant to spend their way out of a crisis. There is a logic to that if you believe their problems are temporary and ill-fated rather than foreseeable and self-inflicted.

The stars have not conspired to align in the wrong order over north London, but it is impossible to escape the suspicion that Spurs would not be where they are had Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Ben Davies remained fit.

The absences of Guglielmo Vicario, Richarlison, Wilson Odobert, and Destiny Udogie – on top of Rodrigo Bentancur’s suspension – have compounded an injury crisis the likes of which Ange Postecoglou says he has never experienced.

So to January, and to the crux of the dilemma on which his project will stand or fall. Do Tottenham buy oven-ready, or repeat their summer pattern, when apart from Dominic Solanke, the average age of their arrivals was 18 years and three months?

Both have been toyed with over the years, and both have had varying success. Unlike so many around them Tottenham have not flirted with the boundaries of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

But since the sliding doors moment of the 2019 Champions League final they have meandered between two possibilities – the necessary immediate fixes, which have usually fixed little, and the hopeful potential of young players who might one day be sold on for a profit.

Once upon a time the big misses – DeAndre Yedlin, Clinton N’Jie, Georges-Kevin N’koudou – were papered over by the hits: Dele Alli, Mousa Dembele, Toby Alderweireld.

Now with the successes drying up, Postecoglou is left with overburdened senior players, those on the fringe ill-suited to his system, and little optimism that much will change in January.

Looking back at these 18 deals that went wrong explains their dilemma in the new year:

Jack Clarke

In his defence, Clarke rocked up to a club that had just gone 18 months without making a signing. By any measure, that is not a good state of health. It might have been expected, in that light, that the then teenager would at least have been given opportunities.

Instead, he never made a competitive appearance in the Premier League, despite looking like a serious talent when he eventually wound up at Sunderland on his fourth loan spell, from where he earned a return to the top flight with Ipswich.

Tanguy Ndombele

Had that been the status quo, fine. The same day a £62m deal – then a club record – was agreed for Tanguy Ndombele.

It was one of the great puzzles of that summer: given the highlights reels, the Champions League showings, and the incessant gossip linking him with all manner of clubs, why were Lyon so content to let him go? It quickly transpired, and in his final match against Morecambe he was booed off by his own fans.

Richarlison

Spending any less than the £60m it took to sign Richarlison was out of the question, particularly with the knowledge that Harry Kane was likely to leave the following summer.

If anything the mistake was not to spend more. Before Solanke he was the only natural centre-forward but injuries have restricted him to 73 appearances in two-and-a-half years, with a tally of just 16 goals. The bulk of them (12) came in 2023-24.

Giovani Lo Celso

Without a recurring hip injury, Lo Celso might have been a long-term Christian Eriksen replacement. Lo Celso loomed in the background, with spectacular performances for Argentina, but no Eriksen pretender really materialised until James Maddison joined in 2023.

Bryan Gil

Gil arrived looking like a young Ringo Starr, only for his time at Tottenham to consist of the defence lumping the ball in the air at all 5ft 7ins of him and wondering why he ended up on loan three times.

On not one of those occasions has he gone to a lower-half Premier League club or a Championship side who might help him acclimatise, but always back to La Liga.

Manor Solomon

Solomon has thrived on loan at Leeds, where he already has three more goals than the zero he managed from out wide at Spurs. The 25-year-old was another badly affected by injuries; tragic irony was that he could have been so much more, with reinforcements desperately needed on the left.

Alejo Veliz

The only striker signed the summer Kane departed, and on a six-year deal rising to £13m. He came from Rosario Central, Messi-land, on the same day as Van de Ven.

At the time, he was just 19 and was never intended to replace the irreplaceable, but he has spent most of his time since on loan with Sevilla and Espanyol.

Matt Doherty

Doherty is another over whom the frustration is that it could have worked so well. Able to fill in on the left and at wing-back, on paper he should have been ideal for the systems of Antonio Conte and Postecoglou.

Bizarrely, Spurs did not even receive a fee when he joined Atletico Madrid and his contract was terminated on deadline day in January 2023, because Spurs had already hit a quota of eight players out on loan overseas that season.

Carlos Vinicius

Vinicius was scoring more than a goal every other game at Benfica but struggled to settle in London over his loan spell, scoring just once.

Ashley Phillips

Were Tottenham’s centre-backs fit, it would have been impossible to keep them all happy; Radu Dragusin’s vocal agent has made that plain enough.

Phillips was sent to Stoke on loan this season to gain experience but is now watching from Stoke as his position is pinned on Archie Gray, a full-back a year younger than him. He could not have been recalled until January at the earliest, so too late to effectively cover for Spurs’ festive headaches.

Joe Rodon

Rodon was another long-standing young target, bought at the age of 22 for just £11m on the basis of his displays for Swansea in the Championship. In his first season, he was an unused substitute in 29 league games, vying with Davinson Sanchez for his spot.

He could not even be named in the Europa League squad because he counted as a non-homegrown player (being Welsh-federation trained). Most of his fee was recouped when he joined Leeds but it was a wasteful episode.

Ivan Perisic

A Conte signing if ever there was one – unlike Djed Spence, whom the Italian dismissed as no more than a “club” addition (publicly, too). Perisic certainly fitted into the category of “players you don’t have to Google” (hat tip to Danny Rose) but the deal seemed incongruous with the strategy as a whole, even if it was a free transfer.

The Croatian international impressed in bursts but suffered with injuries. Having been a natural fit for Conte’s system, working together at Inter Milan, inevitably his role was redundant when Conte left.

Arnaut Danjuma

After Spurs went to such lengths to pip Everton to his signing on loan from Villarreal, by the end of the same year he was at Goodison Park anyway – having produced one league goal in his nine appearances despite a promising start at Preston in the FA Cup.

Emerson Royal

Then 22, Emerson was both Brazilian and came from Barcelona, which made it a promising signing at just £25.8m as a replacement for Serge Aurier. What transpired was a string of defensive issues, a lack of clarity about his role further up the pitch, and an exit to AC Milan in the summer.

Clement Lenglet

Lenglet similarly fell into the category of Barcelona-bought, who might have been part of a serious rebuild from Conte – signed the same summer as Perisic, Richarlison and Yves Bissouma.

The major plus was that he could play at centre-back or on the left, but he never fully convinced at either.

Gedson Fernandes

Jorge Mendes was Gedson’s agent at the time, and Jose Mourinho the Tottenham Hotspur manager. Thus it had to happen, like it or not, and the young midfielder only ever got to make seven appearances.

Timo Werner

There are reasons to advocate for Werner; he stretches the play, has pace, and it is perhaps unfair to judge him by goals when he was not necessarily signed for a conventional role.

At any rate his initial loan has been extended, with an £8.5m option to buy that now looks unlikely after Postecoglou spectacularly threw him under the bus for another “unacceptable” performance against Rangers.

Jack Grealish

And the deal that never was. Surprisingly, really, given the generous offer of £3m and Josh Onomah, which rose to £25m when it was turned down. Grealish was still in the Championship with Aston Villa, It was 2018, he was 23 and yet to hit the heights he later managed – there were ample glimpses of his potential nonetheless.

It was short-sighted not to move while he was desperate to return to the Premier League. Within three years at £100m, he was out of reach and however much he is linked with Spurs now, he is likely to be again – unless Manchester City are willing to take a huge loss.

Son Heung-min has been running on empty for weeks. In fact Tottenham’s 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest was just the latest in a string of sluggish performances from the captain.

Spurs were unfortunate to be behind at the break having dominated possession, but arguably the best of their chances had been wasted when Son failed to supply Brennan Johnson in space and hit his own effort straight at Matz Sels.

Prior to visiting the City Ground, the numbers had masked what is becoming an ever more urgent problem for Ange Postecoglou. Son had been enjoying a run of three goals and two assists from five games but those stats had been flattering in light of his wider form.

Against Liverpool, as Spurs shipped six goals at home, Gary Neville described the forward as “one of the worst” players on the pitch, leaving Trent Alexander-Arnold in acres of space to run riot against a makeshift defence.

Normally a fan favourite, Son’s failure to track back drew vitriol from his own supporters and summed up a familiar story – that his legs are floundering, he is simply playing too much football, and is no longer showing the pace required by Postecoglou’s system.

Son’s future has rarely been in question in his near decade in north London. It is a more pressing issue now that he has just seven months left on his contract, though Spurs have an option to extend that deal by a year which it is understood they intend to activate.

Beyond that, a succession plan for the 32-year-old is desperately needed. Timo Werner has scored three goals since his arrival. Mikey Moore showed signs of brilliance when he first made his breakthrough into the senior team but has since been sidelined with a mystery virus, not featuring since October. At any rate he does not even turn 18 until next summer.

It is what makes Wolves’ Matheus Cunha a more viable option than a more central option like Lille’s Jonathan David when it comes to January targets.

There is little danger of Son leaving next summer but the natural solution would be to reduce his workload by bringing in reinforcements. Both the home loss to Ipswich Town and the draw with Fulham were characterised by early chances, after which he totally tailed off in the second half.

As a result, of his last eight seasons, he is currently registering his second lowest xG (expected goals per 90 minutes) for the 2024-25 campaign (0.29).

It could be overlooked in the Carabao Cup win over Manchester United, towards the end of which he scored a superb finish directly from the corner flag. And it was his set pieces that impressed most against Chelsea but he topped them off with a goal, following that up with two assists and another goal against a hapless Southampton.

Son evidently still has plenty to give, but his first half contribution against Forest was on a par with Werner’s at Rangers, which famously provoked a furious rebuke from Postecoglou who branded it “not acceptable”.

It took 81 minutes for the Spurs boss to withdraw his similarly unsatisfactory counterpart – Son is just lucky he has more credit in the bank.

Tottenham 3-6 Liverpool (Maddison 41′, Kulusevski 72′, Solanke 83′ | Diaz 23′, 85′, Mac Allister 36′, Szoboszlai 45+1′, Salah 54′, 61′)

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM — People dressed in red overalls, hoods up, faces hidden by black masks with white shapes on them, could be seen roaming the concourses before and during Tottenham’s 6-3 defeat to Liverpool.

The stunt was part of a dynamic marketing campaign with Netflix to promote the upcoming release of Squid Game 2 – the hit South Korean show also flashing up frequently on the pitch side hoardings.

A dystopian deadly competition in which participants are willing to take huge risks for a massive cash prize, has been a bit like supporting Spurs this season: the players always 90 minutes away from murdering the competition or being murdered, with barely anything in between.

The stunt went down badly in some quarters, probably not helped by the result – one fan complaining that Tottenham are an entertainment venue first, a football club second.

Which isn’t a bad summary of what they have become under Ange Postecoglou, the brilliantly stubborn football purist.

“It’s got all the hallmarks of a 0-0, mate,” Postecoglou had said in his pre-match interview with deadpan sarcasm, a barely disguised nod to his burgeoning reputation as an all-or-nothing coach.

He had asked “Are you not entertained?” after that thrillingly bizarre Carabao Cup quarter-final victory against Manchester United three days before.

We’re all entertained, mate, but maybe not in the way most Spurs fans had hoped they would be at this stage.

Giving Mohamed Salah that much of a loose leash, allowing one of deadliest finishers the league has ever seen – now with 172 Premier League goals to his name – to have five shots in the opening 18 minutes, is entertaining.

A goalkeeper, who three days before had gifted the opposition two goals with poor ball-work, trying again and passing straight to Salah, who uncharacteristically dragged a shot wide, is entertaining.

Fraser Forster is only standing in for the injured Guglielmo Vicario but it feels almost cruel to force him to play that way.

Spurs gave the ball away again trying to pass out from the back, Salah beating three players and firing onto the crossbar.

There’s nothing not entertaining about watching Liverpool score six goals away from home. Just not for a Spurs fan.

Postecoglou is the most entertaining manager in the Premier League bar none. This season alone he has presided over 4-3 thrillers against Manchester United and Chelsea, 3-2 nail-biters v Galatasaray and Brighton.

They’ve scored three-plus goals in a staggering 10 games. Beaten Manchester City twice (which, admittedly, is becoming less of an accomplishment as hindsight unfurls).

But there’s also this. It began as a game that felt like it could go either way before kick-off, because Spurs are that unpredictable. But it ended with a somewhat predictable dismantling by the leading team in the Premier League.

“They are so intense, and not afraid to take risks so when they take the ball off you they are an immediate threat,” Liverpool manager Arne Slot said.

And there was a genuine “can-they-do-it” sense around the stadium when, after having barely a shot on goal, they pressured Alexis Mac Allister into losing the ball on the edge of his own area and James Maddison curled in to make it 2-1 with four minutes remaining of the first half.

It lasted all of five minutes before they were two behind again before the half was out.

The BBC described “Spursy” as “shorthand to describe Tottenham’s wildly inconsistent form, an ability to snatch draws or defeats from the jaws of victory, and put their supporters through the wringer” and Postecoglou has somehow, since taking over, become the personification of that philosophy on a grander scale. The highs that bit higher, the lows that much lower.

It was very “Ange” for them to score a wonderful goal – Dominic Solanke clipping a ball over for Dejan Kulusevski to volley in – at 5-1 down with only 15 minutes left.

And then also pretty “Ange” for them to score again, Solanke converting with seven minutes remaining.

“Could they do it?” you wondered. You kind of thought they might.

For all of the two minutes it took Liverpool to add a sixth.

The prize can be so marvellous for Spurs when it works. The football is maybe too deadly to last.

On a par with “It’s….. Rebekah Vardy’s account”, most Tottenham fans will remember where they were when Danny Rose was unveiled as the unnamed player “from a big six side” teased in The Sun ahead of a tell-all interview slamming the club’s recruitment.

It was approaching mid-August of 2017 and Spurs were the only side at that stage who had not signed a single player in the summer window.

At first, Rose’s words felt like heresy, a naked attack on Daniel Levy’s regime and a line crossed. “I am not saying buy 10 players, I’d love to see two or three — and not players you have to Google and say, ‘Who’s that?’ I mean well-known players.”

But Rose had simply said the quiet part out loud, as famously did Antonio Conte, when he flipped the Monopoly board having asked for a hotel on Mayfair and instead been handed the football equivalent of the Old Kent Road.

It cost Conte his job and he didn’t seem to care. His prophecy that “they can change the manager, a lot of managers, but the situation cannot change, believe me” still rings true around the boardroom of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Now Ange Postecoglou is the latest coach having to come out swinging with one hand tied behind his back.

That is certainly the consensus among the squad. This week Cristian Romero hit Levy with a few more home truths after watching a two-goal lead against Chelsea collapse with depressing inevitability.

In comments to Telemundo Deportes, widely translated into English, Romero reflected: “The truth is, I would say no comment, but… Manchester City competes every year, you see how Liverpool strengthens its squad, Chelsea strengthens their squad, doesn’t do well, strengthens again, and now they’re seeing results. Those are the things to imitate.

“You have to realise that something is going wrong, hopefully, they realise it. The last few years, it’s always the same: first, the players, then the coaching staff changes, and it’s always the same people responsible.

“Hopefully, they realise who the true responsible ones are, and we move forward because it’s a beautiful club that, with the structure it has, could easily be competing for the title every year.”

It will be music to the ears of an increasingly beleaguered Postecoglou that he still has the dressing room. The problem is who’s in it. That does not mean that his tactical dogma is beyond reproach – it is his job to work with the players he has. But if he does not survive the season, there will always be a nagging feeling that Spurs were on the cusp of something special and frittered it away by signing the wrong players.

Long-standing interest in Conor Gallagher was not followed up. Manuel Locatelli would have strengthened the midfield options considerably. It has not been easy keeping Radu Dragusin happy when Romero and Micky van de Ven are fit but he is now the only available option at centre-back, with Ben Davies hobbling off in the 1-0 loss to Bournemouth.

Beyond his first XI, much of the fringe are not suited to Postecoglou’s system. That was glaringly obvious in the second half of last season, particularly after injuries to James Maddison and Rodrigo Bentancur rocked an early season title challenge and sent Spurs hurtling back into reality. This calendar year, which mercifully is about to end, they have lost 14 of their 33 league games.

It is not entirely a matter of not spending – with a dishonourable mention to the summer of 2018, which ended without any new additions. Incredible, really, that Aston Villa were insulted by a generous offer of £25m for Jack Grealish.

On other occasions Spurs have spent, but not well or enough. Tanguy Ndombele. Richarlison. Davinson Sanchez.

When Postecoglou first came in, he was given the keys to the mansion – Maddison, Brennan Johnson, permanent deals for Dejan Kulusevski and Pedro Porro, Guglielmo Vicario, and Van de Ven. Yet he was never allowed to finish the job and little wonder, 18 months on, Spurs look half-baked – capable of destroying Manchester City on one day and on another, losing to winless Crystal Palace and Ipswich Town.

It is not only the approach to signing players that is muddled, but who is tasked with making the decisions. Postecoglou is but one strand in a convoluted web that includes Levy, technical director Johan Lange and chief football officer Scott Munn.

Over the course of Levy’s tenure the club has flitted between giving the manager more direct authority – as was the case under Harry Redknapp – and employing various directors of football: David Pleat, Damien Comolli, Fabio Paratici, before the latter was banned from the game worldwide over accusations of false accounting at Juventus.

Which brings us back to the obvious question: what would be the point of ditching the Postecoglou project? Sacking the Australian would effectively be an admission that he is never going to be given the players he needs to make it work.

Mauricio Pochettino was the last incumbent who genuinely looked on the brink of achieving the unthinkable, contesting two title races, a League Cup final, two FA Cup semi-finals and a Champions League final.

Then came 18 dormant months and the players Pochettino wanted – Sadio Mane among them, given their previous relationship at Southampton – went elsewhere. In a wholly unforeseeable turn of events, neither Clinton N’Jie nor Vincent Janssen fired Tottenham to the Premier League trophy.

This time Romero has pointed to the number of injuries suffered – which have included himself, Van de Ven and Davies – as the reason Tottenham have become so threadbare. “Players are the first ones to be criticised, then if we lose 10 games, the staff can be changed, but nobody talks about what is actually happening,” he added.

That does not excuse the in-game management that contributed to the extraordinary capitulations against both Brighton and Chelsea. It does, however, leave Spurs fans feeling as if they have seen this film before and it never ends well for the manager. Under Levy, they have changed head coach on average every year and a half. In 23 years of Enic ownership, the trophy count remains at one.

Levy would never have lasted so long were he concerned with opinions. He has seen the “Levy Out” balloons float down from the South Stand onto the pitch, the “purple and gold until we’re sold” colourings and the “to dare is too dear” banners. He remains unmoved, as Tottenham veer in the wrong direction.

Tottenham 3-4 Chelsea (Solanke 5′, Kulusevski 11′, Son 90’+6 | Sancho 17′, Palmer 61′ pen, 84′ pen, Fernandez 73′)

TOTTENHAM STADIUM — There was a dream that was Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham Hotspur.

It breathed in brilliant flashes, a fragile yet unflinching vision of uniting football’s often opposing twin aims of entertainment and glory without compromising on either.

It aimed towards Son Heung-min with the Premier League trophy aloft, that infamous drought ended by Brennan Johnson inexplicably scoring in every game despite never playing particularly well.

It was a dream you wanted to believe in, a romantic vision that perfection is possible, but it died on Sunday evening with a pendulous thwack of Enzo Fernandez’s boot.

Postecoglou’s childishly naive idealism is beautiful in principle, especially for the league’s oldest manager, but in practice, it looks like this – 11 perfect first-half minutes betrayed by nearly 90 more of chaos and confusion, a team grasping at thin air to find any semblance of control or sense of self.

This was the Postecoglou experience in microcosm, played out under a rainy haze which lent this game the disconcerting miasma of an anxiety dream.

We saw the theory made reality, and we saw why it’s as utopian as it is unsustainable.

It requires a perfection of pressing and decision-making which Tottenham cannot afford to finance, and shouldn’t have much interest in doing so.

Now seven points behind their Premier League total at the same stage last season, sat 11th having won one game in seven, this is managed decline repackaged as a project, in large part through its figurehead’s Roberto Martinez-esque gift for persuasion and “mate”-infused proselytization.

Fifth last season felt like progress, but it was achieved without the distractions of European football and ultimately earned just six points more than 2022-23, which ended with five defeats in seven matches under Cristian Stellini.

Spurs have lost 19 of their past 40 Premier League matches – there’s only so long spin can survive under its own weight for.

And there will be ways of spinning Tottenham’s early two-goal lead as a sign of this side’s capabilities, of what’s possible if only they stick at it and buy the perfect players in every position and never have any injuries or accidents or other inconveniences.

Both Dominic Solanke and the stadium announcer spoke pre-match about what this side can achieve “on their day”, as if that timing is some twist of fortune decided by some higher footballing power.

Yet you could also argue that however well Solanke and Johnson pressed Chelsea, that lead was only made possible by Marc Cucurella’s inopportune footwear – he slipped in the build-up to both goals.

Without that, Jadon Sancho’s second goal in as many games would have been the opener, and Chelsea may have galloped off without reply.

And keeping a clean sheet in those rapidly alternating early phases was entirely dependent on starting both Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, despite neither being fully fit.

Romero’s teary exit after 15 minutes was a reminder of how poorly covered Tottenham’s yawning chasms are.

Reality 1-0 The Dream, once again – this may well be Postecoglou’s managerial epitaph.

With Pep Guardiola’s empire falling and Jurgen Klopp nestled in the posh seats, a great era of tactical idealism, of idolising managers over their players, is dying.

No team exemplifies that better than Chelsea under Enzo Maresca, whose overarching philosophy appears to be to win at any cost, thriving by exploiting the predictability of their opponents principles.

Unless Tottenham act soon, they risk being caught on the wrong side of a tidal shift in management led by adaptable, variable managers like Maresca, Mikel Arteta or Arne Slot.

It’s not that Postecoglou is a poor manager or that his ideas are genuinely unworkable, it’s that he fits almost too perfectly at Spurs, leans into the club’s innate habits and worst traits and excuses them.

Immovable principles in football are the preserve of the super-rich or insane – occasionally both – and Postecoglou will never have the players or the funding to realise his vision.

He had great success at Celtic for a reason, and could recreate that with Manchester City or Chelsea’s budget, but not Tottenham’s.

And so Spurs can waste more time and more money attempting to be something they never will be, giving more air to the idea that there’s something rotten in the psychology of their players and makeup of their club.

Or, they can roll the dice once more, as so many of their rivals have done with almost immediate reward.

Their consistent inconsistency is entirely dependent on their manager’s dogged stubbornness.

Postecoglou’s dream is over, and his Tottenham career should be too.

Positivity never tends to last long at Tottenham Hotspur. As night follows day, the high of their 4-0 win over Manchester City has been swiftly and severely followed by news of Guglielmo Vicario’s long-term injury.

The Italian revealed he played an hour against City with a fractured ankle he has since had surgery on, and his absence is expected to extend to months rather than weeks.

In short, this is not good news for Ange Postecoglou. His pronounced weakness at set-pieces aside, Vicario is among the Premier League’s best shot-stoppers and fits the Australian’s tactical framework perfectly.

He has prevented the third-most goals of all Premier League keepers this season (2.9) – calculated by removing goals allowed from post-shot expected goals against – and a protracted break could seriously damage Spurs’ season.

So, how can Postecoglou navigate this crucial loss?

Trust in Fraser Forster

This is the most likely option, and really the only one to take in the short term.

Having already started twice in the Europa League and once in the Carabao Cup this season, Forster is Tottenham’s undoubted second-choice stopper.

Now 36, he has extensive Premier League experience and is comfortable with his feet – a necessity under Postecoglou – but has not played in the Premier League since May 2023.

That was also the last time he played two consecutive games, a challenge in its own right ahead of the packed festive schedule. Spurs have 10 matches to play before the end of December, including a Carabao Cup quarter-final and Premier League clashes with Chelsea and Liverpool.

He has been solid so far this season, although fans still reference a disastrous performance against Fulham in 2023-24 which demonstrates his potential downside.

Forster is a functional option in goal, albeit not a glamorous one, but the month before the January transfer window will provide Spurs the opportunity to assess whether the gentle giant can be depended on.

Sign a replacement on 1 January

Forster effectively has a month to determine whether he can adequately serve the club he was expected to leave next summer anyway.

But really, Tottenham shouldn’t have put him or themselves in this situation anyway. The disparity between Forster and Vicario is a failure in the club’s squad planning and something which has needed addressing long before this week.

An elite back-up goalkeeper should now be standard fare for any side with Champions League ambition, yet Spurs have delayed upgrading on Forster and may well now pay the price.

If you look at the clubs around Tottenham in the Premier League, it’s not until you reach clubs like Brentford and Fulham that you see such a dramatic drop-off in quality between starting and supporting goalkeepers.

And so pursuing a stronger back-up should be a necessity regardless of how Forster performs. When Liverpool and Manchester City can call on Caoimhin Kelleher and Stefan Ortega, or even Brighton on Jason Steele or West Ham on Lukasz Fabianski, Spurs need to strengthen in the net.

But whether they do this in January or the summer will depend entirely on how Forster holds up throughout December.

Give another back-up a chance

There is also a third way here, albeit one which will almost certainly not be pursued unless Forster produces a series of calamitous errors over the coming weeks.

American Brandon Austin and Englishman Alfie Whiteman are third- and fourth-choice keeper, although neither have played a Premier League minute since graduating from the Spurs academy in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

Man City 0-4 Tottenham (Maddison 13′, 20′, Porro 52′, Johnson 90+4)

No Rodri, nor Rodrigo, this risked being a 90 minutes defined by who was not on the pitch rather than who was.

Too often in November that tag has applied to James Maddison, benched against Aston Villa and Ipswich, anonymous at Galatasaray, but whose season roared back into gear with two goals in seven minutes as Spurs tore the champions to shreds.

Pep Guardiola can attempt to play it down – two of Manchester City’s five straight defeats were in cup competitions – but two losses in three weeks have come against Tottenham Hotspur. Ange Postecoglou, like Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho, Mauricio Pochettino – even Nuno – before him, had City’s number once again.

In these pages this week, we wrote that Bentancur’s suspension would be make-or-break, and that the obvious move was to maintain the status quo by introducing Yves Bissouma at No 6. Instead Dejan Kulusevski shifted back into his former role in the front three, while Bissouma, Pape Matar Sarr and Maddison made up the midfield.

Without Kulusevski, none of Spurs’ first three goals could have happened. The Swede was unfortunate to end with just the one assist. Against a tormented Josko Gvardiol, City were repeatedly unpicked from the right while John Stones floundered in the middle. City conceded three times – for the second successive season at home to the same opposition – because they were beaten on width time and again.

Crucially, on a stellar 28th birthday, Maddison had redefined his positioning on the left; his two goals came from cutting into the middle, combining with Kulusevski or Son Heung-min, but he had already stretched City by occasionally dropping into the left-back role and overlapping with Destiny Udogie, who at times was effectively operating as a No 10.

City were particularly susceptible down that flank because at 34, Kyle Walker’s pace looks irrecoverable.

John Stones was hauled off at half-time. There were moments when Spurs’ tinkering down the left made them vulnerable, Udogie straying too far and leaving Erling Haaland unattended in the box, but it is an indictment of what has gone so mind-blowingly wrong at City that they were not able to capitalise on that pressure early on.

The first Spurs goal was distinctly peculiar, their first touch in the City box and coming totally against the run of play. It was nothing short of a knockout blow when Spurs were flagging on the ropes.

James Maddison vs Man City

Goals: 2

Take-ons completed: 2

Duels won: 9

Possession won: 5

Tackles: 2

Via Squawka

“You’re getting sacked in the morning,” boomed the away end at the City head coach who signed a new contract this week.

This is a result that, as Gary Neville put it on commentary, will “emphasise that this is a City side which is in decline”. Once it was Fernandinho whose presence or absence risked shaping their fate one way or another. It is too simplistic to assume Rodri’s ACL alone has thrown City off course, but it allowed Spurs to exploit a disorganised pack, with Maddison’s alternating runs perplexing Ilkay Gundogan.

A week earlier, Postecoglou had hesitated to throw Maddison on against Ipswich, even once Spurs had cut the deficit to a single goal. Reports followed of the playmaker’s unhappiness at the club, banished in style with his best performance of the season.

Afterwards, the England international was asked who the real Spurs are – the ones that lost to Kieran McKenna’s newly-promoted men, or the team who sent shockwaves across the Premier League on Saturday evening at the Etihad.

He was only going to answer one way. The emergence of the real Maddison could be the key to proving it.

Manchester City 0-4 Tottenham (Maddison 13’, 20’, Porro 52’, Johnson 90+3′)

It began with searchlights scanning the crowd, who responded by turning on the lights on their phones. You wondered if Bob Dylan was going to wander on and sing “Blowing in the Wind”.

Instead, Rodri came on to parade his Ballon d’Or. Behind him, on the pitch, there was a giant board where his name was picked out in lightbulbs as if the Manchester City midfielder were Elvis and this was the 1968 Comeback Special. Blackpool may have done something similar for Stanley Matthews when he won the award.

Then the crowd began chanting Pep Guardiola‘s name. He had responded to a run of four defeats by announcing he had signed a new two-year contract and reminding a media he always suspects of wanting the whole City project to implode that he had won six Premier League titles.

It was a demonstration of who Manchester City are. The champions of England with the best manager and best player in the world.

They then suffered their fifth successive defeat and by a distance the most damaging. By the time Brennan Johnson clipped home the fourth from another breakaway which saw Timo Werner leave Kyle Walker for dead, it had become a rout.

None of the previous losses looked though it might be fatal. One was in the Champions League group stage and another was in the League Cup, a competition Guardiola wanted rid of anyway.

The consequences of this defeat might be season-defining. Liverpool could host City next Sunday eight points clear.

Should City give the ball away as casually as they did against Tottenham and defend as naively, the defence of their title may be over on the first day of December.

It is worth pointing out that Manchester City still attacked like a Guardiola team. Had Guglielmo Vicario not been in exceptional form in the Spurs goal, had Phil Foden, Savinho and Erling Haaland, in particular, been slightly more accurate with their shooting, this might have been an epic contest.

Tottenham, who came here as the only club to have lost to Ipswich and Crystal Palace, have now beaten both Manchester clubs on their own turf and removed City from the League Cup.

Spurs have taken more points from Guardiola at the Etihad than any other club. They have never seemed afraid of Manchester City – the last eight games between these two sides here have produced 36 goals. Now was not the time to start.

Dejan Kulusevski gave them penetration from the flanks that James Maddison exploited beautifully. His first goal was taken on the volley, the second almost dug out from under his boots as he advanced on goal. Both were scored with a coolness City, who had double the number of shots, mostly lacked.

Tottenham, as their fans know, are perfectly capable of tossing aside a two-goal lead but the third, which saw Dominic Solanke pulling back the ball for Pedro Porro to thunder into the top of Ederson’s net, was the killer.

When the story of the season comes to be written, it will probably conclude that the loss of Rodri, the man who dominated the prelude to this contest, was crucial and the moment his anterior cruciate snapped against Arsenal was the moment of reckoning.

There are comparisons with Roy Keane’s absence with a similar injury at a similar time – their cruciates both went in September – that climaxed with Manchester United losing the title to Arsenal in 1998.

The difference is that City’s collapse came almost immediately after Rodri’s injury whereas United fell apart between February and April, months in which Alex Ferguson’s sides generally excelled.

The blip is becoming a landslide and if Guardiola cannot halt it against Liverpool, they will be buried beneath it. Perhaps, before that match they ought to play a film in the dressing room of Manchester City losing to Mansfield in the 1998 Auto Windscreens Shield.