“To Dare is to Digeridoo”

Hello again, and welcome back for a very exciting day for Spurs fans, possibly the only exciting day they’ve had this season apart from the day Manchester City ensured their North London rivals would not win the title. It has been a rough few seasons in the white half of North London: the big-name manager appointments of Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte have failed with fireworks. Each manager grew increasingly frustrated with the club failing to meet their demands in terms of player recruitment, and both were sacked in dramatic fashion – Mourinho days before what could have been Tottenham’s first trophy since 2008 in the League Cup final, and Conte hours after delivering a a press conference filled with criticisms and frustrations of managing Spurs, effectively forcing his own departure.

It makes complete sense though.

To not be mistaken by the reader, both Mourinho and Conte are two of the game’s best ever managers, and their history of accomplishments cannot be denied. However, they were never the right fit for Tottenham, and the signs of discontent were evident long before each manager’s eventual departure. Daniel Levy has been the chairman of the club for almost the entire Premier League era, taking the role in 2001 when ENIC purchased Tottenham. Since his arrival, Spurs have created a club identity around attacking, entertaining football. The transfer profile of the club has been to purchase younger players with potential to develop and then be sold on at a healthy profit to sustain the club’s operations. This has been effective for Spurs, albeit obviously not in the trophies department (Let’s get all the trophy jokes out now so we can discuss the less amusing but more relevant details). Despite never winning the Premier League, or other major silverware recently, this approach by Tottenham has led to increased fan support and financial stability.

In an era where it no longer feels uncommon to hear about some of the biggest clubs in world football having severe financial issues, Spurs have stayed clear of any danger without the unlimited budget that comes with a club owned by an entire country with massive oil reserves. Did Spurs become the first team in history to have a self-imposed transfer ban for 2 consecutive transfer windows? Yes they did, and I shared the frustration of all the fans during that time period. The lack of spending helped Spurs complete the construction of their new stadium, which provides a massive boost to revenue compared to the old White Hart Lane. Once the stadium was completed, the plan was to start spending with more ambition. This was the right idea, but as we have seen through the Mourinho and Conte eras, the right manager for the project was not chosen.

Both managers prefer older, more established players, and play a strict defense-first style. These two preferences directly contrasted with the club identity and culture that Spurs had worked to build over the past 15+ years. High potential young players were not trusted enough to be given game time, and the overall age of the squad increased. Under Pochettino, Spurs regularly lined up with a starting XI who were on average, younger than 25 years old. Meanwhile, Antonio Conte’s most recent edition of Tottenham had the oldest average age of starting XI players (29.6 years) since Glenn Hoddle managed the team in the early 2000’s. The abandonment of “The Tottenham Method”, if you will, resulted in a significant portion of the fanbase losing all trust with upper management, and calling for Daniel Levy’s exit. Gone was the exciting, free-flowing attacking football that entertained fans, win, lose, or draw. Instead, Spurs fans sat through 3 years of boring, pragmatic, defensive football.

“When you’re winning, nobody cares how you play” – A smart man, probably

That’s the thing about defensive football, it’s only tolerable to the fans for so long after the results stop coming. Now, that’s enough about how we’ve gotten to this point, time to talk about the main point of the article: Ange Postecoglu is taking over as the next Spurs manager. This is exactly what Spurs need. Here’s why:

• Postecoglu has made his career playing attacking, high-pressing football. An early mentor in his career was his coach in Australia, Ferenc Puskas, who imparted his philosophy of playing a beautiful attacking game over a more pragmatic one to Postecoglu, who acted as a translator for Puskas upon his arrival in Australia (Puskas spoke little English but was fluent in Greek, which Postecoglu also spoke). He believes in this philosophy, and will not abandon his approach due to a bad run of results. A favorite quote of mine from Ange sums it up perfectly: “The way I see it is this: if you are a vegetarian, you’re not just going to pop into a Macca’s (McDonald’s) because you’re hungry!”
• Naturally suiting his brand of football, Postecoglu has no qualms about playing young players, seeing the energy and potential they bring to the game rather than their lack of experience.
• His teams are families. Any interview of one of Ange’s former players shows nothing but good signs. He knows when to be a disciplinarian and knows when to be a father figure. A change in mentality around the locker room is exactly what Spurs need after 3 years of failure.
• He has never managed a top club at the level of the Premier League. Confused as to why this is a positive? Postecoglu will have a level of motivation that is hard to match once you’ve won everything there is to win in club football. Additionally, he comes across as a very selfless individual. In his interview following Celtic’s completion of their treble, Postecoglu was filled with nothing but praise for his team, accrediting all their success to his players, seemingly uninterested in discussing his own personal contributions. This lack of reputation and ego will likely result in much less frustration and clashes with the management of Spurs. The club will feel less of a need to change their entire identity, and rather have Postecoglu integrated into the Spurs Process.

Before arriving in North London, Ange Postecoglu has managed, and won titles, with the Brisbane Roar of the A-League, the Australian national team, the Yokohama Marinos in the J-League, and finally with Celtic in Scotland. These teams have received some high praise: his Brisbane side are often affectionately referred to as Roarcelona (a compliment to the Catalonians), and the former coach of the alluded-to Barcelona side, Pep Guardiola, heaped praise on Postecoglu’s Yokohama Marinos side (who are interestingly enough also owned by the City Football Group). Most recently, he became one of just a handful of managers to have won the treble with Celtic. The man wins wherever he goes.

How might Spurs line up under Postecoglu?

Ange Postecoglu likes to use a 4-3-3 shape in his teams.

Out of possession, the wingers often stay high up on the pitch, and do much less tracking back than in other systems. They will often stay in line with the striker, acting as an outlet for a quick counter if the ball is won back. Their role is very much single-minded, focused on creating offensive chances. In possession, Postecoglu instructs his wingers to stretch the pitch wide and stay near the touchline, operating in more space with which to beat a defender and get the ball into more central areas. The fullbacks generally tuck into the midfield in buildup, with one playing as a more traditional inverted fullback, and the other operating more in the wide areas of the pitch, but not making many overlapping runs. This forms the 2-3-5 buildup shape that we see many possession-based, high-pressing sides use. With the fullbacks more inverted, this opens up space for the two CM’s to make forward runs into the half-spaces, which is where Postecoglu wants the ball to end up in the final third. Now here is where Ange might need to tweak his approach to fit the current Spurs squad. Assuming there isn’t an entire overhaul of the midfield and fullback positions, the players in the Tottenham squad at CM and FB do not often play the roles they would under Postecoglu. Players like Pedro Porro and Destiny Udogie prefer to be influencing the final third more often, using the width of the pitch. To make matters more complicated, Tottenham’s midfielders all fall more into the holding midfield or box-to-box role than a playmaker. So the question I will attempt to answer is: How can Ange Postecoglu best recreate his offensive build-up shape with the current Spurs team?

In this lineup, I attempted to emulate Postecoglu’s Celtic lineup. Here, Ben Davies is playing as the inverted LB, and Pedro Porro is operating as the wider, inverted RB. Naturally, the CM on the right side will be dropping slightly deeper in buildup to account for Porro’s offensive contribution, and the RW Kulusevski can move inside to the half-spaces, allowing Porro to overlap down the flank. Runs behind the defense from Porro will certainly be a target for switches from the left flank. Alternatively, the fullback combination of Destiny Udogie and Emerson Royal could be used, with Emerson filling the more inverted fullback role, and Udogie given more freedom to make forward runs. This would flip the formation I’ve lined up, and result in the more attacking CM moving over to the right side of the pitch.

Generally, the striker in a Postecoglu team plays right on the last line of defense, moving into the channels to find space and support build-up, while looking for his opportunity to make a run behind the defense. This is different from the role Harry Kane usually occupies, as he likes to drop deeper to create from midfield, often finding a winger making an inverted run. If Kane stays at Spurs next season, Postecoglu will have to make a decision on whether he asks Kane to play a different role than he is used to, or whether he will change his system to adapt to Kane. If Kane leaves North London, Richarlison fits the mold of a Postecoglu #9 much better.

I’ve mentioned that Tottenham’s central midfielders are hard-working solid players, but they lack creativity. Giovani Lo Celso, who I think is the most needed in the team from the players out on loan, fits the #10 role the best, but I would expect Postecoglu to address that deficiency in the transfer market if he wants to play his style without making any changes. Another way that Spurs could form the 2-3-5 buildup shape in a slightly different manner is from a 4-4-2 defensive shape. We saw Ryan Mason use a 4-4-2 out of possession shape in his time managing the club this season to good effect. The benefits of this are that the 4-4-2 takes advantage of Tottenham’s squad strength, allowing an extra wide player on the pitch instead of a third midfielder. Porro can play RM with Emerson at RB, or Udogie can play LM with Davies at LB. Son and Richarlison can be played both in the wide roles or as a striker. My favorite part about this shape for Spurs is that it allows Kane to effectively function as the team’s creative midfielder in build-up, something he is so good at doing. As Davies inverts, the midfield duo of Bissouma and Hojbjerg/Sarr will slide over, creating the 2-3 base of the buildup shape. This lets both Porro and Udogie drive forward into wide areas, Kulusevski and Son occupy the half-spaces, and Kane can play centrally, dropping deep if he wants to with plenty of passing options. I’ve shown the shift from the 4-4-2 starting shape into the 2-3-5 buildup shape below.

I believe that if Postecoglu wants to play his style of attacking football, he could achieve that without any transfers by lining the team up in such a fashion. To truly make Ange-ball successful, Spurs should look to bring in a left-sided CB, an inverted fullback, and a creative attacking midfielder, along with a new keeper capable of playing the modern sweeper role effectively.

In conclusion, Ange Postecoglu brings a strong mindset, an unyielding self-belief, an electric brand of attacking football, and reason for Spurs fans to be optimistic once again. He has turned every team he has managed into a family of winners, and now he takes on his toughest test yet: bringing silverware to Tottenham. If he is given patience and time (looking at you Mr. Levy), Spurs will soon find themselves back up fighting for Champions League qualification and entertaining their fans with beautiful football.

Keep an eye on the summer transfers and the start of next season! Spurs will bring a much different look than in recent history, and look to be on the right course. Thanks for reading!