Manager Watch: Ange Postecoglou

[PaulM]

Everything ENIC does is to build their asset, 23 years and people still seriously think winning trophies is anywhere near the top of ENICs priorities? If it is they are quite shit at it, you not think? Or are we just to wait another 23 years to see this grand plan come to fruition whilst seeing the same mistakes made today as 5/10 years ago? And this term 'goes back into the club' is quite vague, there is still a hotel and a large property development to come, whatever other entertainment avenues Levy can figure to exploit, all about fattening the cow until they sell and in the meantime we wait and we wait...

Undoubtedly they want to build the value of their asset. But that’s not a mutually exclusive goal from being successful on the pitch.

For me, Levy is too cautious fiscally and I think he’s brought us as far as he can. But I do believe he wants success for the club. This isn’t an absolute “value or trophies” argument. He wants both but probably puts too much emphasis on value.

 

[YB123]

People make it sound like prioritising top 4 is about making money and lining ENIC’s pockets. It’s not.

Any money the club makes goes back into the club. That’s a statement of fact. Levy has always said that the path to success in his view is maximising revenue to allow us to compete in the transfer market. Getting CL football does more for that goal than winning the league cup. It’s about making the club higher profile and more competitive.

Now I get that people will say that the game is about trophies and not top 4 and that’s also a legitimate viewpoint to take even if I disagree. But it’s unfair to infer that prioritising top 4 is about money when it’s actually a means to an end that everyone associated with this club wants.

Thats such a vague ridiculously Pro-ENIC statement. Funny how you didnt mention "the team" but "the club".

When you havent won a trophy for 16 years and continue to prioritize top 4, its purely financially motivated. e.g - Levy sacking Mourinho and hiring a 29 year old 5 days before a cup final because he was going to play reserves in the midweek league game.

Your statement is everything opposite the supposed club motto is about "the game is about glory".

We've got a shiny new stadium getting top 4 and still didnt support previous managers with these "higher profile signings" and be "more competitive".

Of course the top 4 is about money. lets not be so naive.

 

[RuskyM]

Thats such a vague ridiculously Pro-ENIC statement. Funny how you didnt mention "the team" but "the club".

When you havent won a trophy for 16 years and continue to prioritize top 4, its purely financially motivated. e.g - Levy sacking Mourinho and hiring a 29 year old 5 days before a cup final because he was going to play reserves in the midweek league game.

That wasn't why he sacked Mourinho; he sacked him cos he was useless at his job and no one wanted him there anymore.

 

[YB123]

That wasn't why he sacked Mourinho; he sacked him cos he was useless at his job and no one wanted him there anymore.

Agreed but you dont sack him 5 days before a final for a 29 year old rookie. Thats not opinion, thats a fact.

 

[PLTuck]

I like SJ's take on it. (Ignore the clickbaity title)

 

[Stuart Leathercock]

That wasn't why he sacked Mourinho; he sacked him cos he was useless at his job and no one wanted him there anymore.

The timing of the sacking told us everything. One thing Mourinho is actually rather good at is winning cup finals. Alas, a very outside chance of a top 5 finish means more to our chairman than the chance of winning a trophy.

 

[RuskyM]

Agreed but you dont sack him 5 days before a final for a 29 year old rookie. Thats not opinion, thats a fact.

The timing of the sacking told us everything. One thing Mourinho is actually rather good at is winning cup finals. Alas, a very outside chance of a top 5 finish means more to our chairman than the chance of winning a trophy.

He lost to a team in prison about a week before - it was largely to bury bad news during the super league debacle rather than to throw the league cup. The only issue with the Mourinho sacking was that it didn't happen about eighteen months before.

I just don't buy the idea that an owner doesn't want their team to be successful.

 

[Stuart Leathercock]

He lost to a team in prison about a week before - it was largely to bury bad news during the super league debacle rather than to throw the league cup. The only issue with the Mourinho sacking was that it didn't happen about eighteen months before.

I just don't buy the idea that an owner doesn't want their team to be successful.

No he didn't. We played another 4 league games after going out of the Europa League to Dinamo Zagreb. If Levy had sacked Mourinho immediately after the Zagreb loss then you'd have a point but we instead played another four league games and then he only sacked him as a direct consequence of the manager wanting to rest the whole team in the midweek PL game against Southampton to maximise the chances of winning the League Cup at the weekend.

 

[alfie103]

He lost to a team in prison about a week before - it was largely to bury bad news during the super league debacle rather than to throw the league cup. The only issue with the Mourinho sacking was that it didn't happen about eighteen months before.

I just don't buy the idea that an owner doesn't want their team to be successful.

I don't think Levy doesn't want Tottenham to be successful but he puts ENIC's interests ahead of Tottenham's interests and isn't willing to go against ENIC's interests to try and help Tottenham to be successful.

 

[synththfc]

I don't think Levy doesn't want Tottenham to be successful but he puts ENIC's interests ahead of Tottenham's interests and isn't willing to go against ENIC's interests to try and help Tottenham to be successful.

I’d say this is a pretty reasonable take - if Tottenham’s success aligned with ENIC’s investment success he’d do everything he could to make it happen

 

[Styopa]

No he didn't. We played another 4 league games after going out of the Europa League to Dinamo Zagreb. If Levy had sacked Mourinho immediately after the Zagreb loss then you'd have a point but we instead played another four league games and then he only sacked him as a direct consequence of the manager wanting to rest the whole team in the midweek PL game against Southampton to maximise the chances of winning the League Cup at the weekend.

I don’t buy this. You think Mourinho went to Levy to sign off his midweek team sheet and Levy said no I’m not having it so sacked him?

I’m sure Levy makes league position number one priority but I don’t think he’s there signing off on team sheets every week.

 

[WhiteStripe]

Lot of bed wetting over nothing. We have a new manager who I for one feel more excited about than any manager since Poch. Even moreso in some ways.

He’s here hopefully for the long term. He’s learning, he will make mistakes, he will make decisions we wouldn’t and he will get things wrong. I don’t expect him to prioritise anything this season other than breeding a philosophy into the squad. If last night was part of trying to do that then who cares.

It’s not about winning a carabao cup this season, it’s bigger than that. Get some perspective.

 

[PaulM]

Thats such a vague ridiculously Pro-ENIC statement. Funny how you didnt mention "the team" but "the club".

When you havent won a trophy for 16 years and continue to prioritize top 4, its purely financially motivated. e.g - Levy sacking Mourinho and hiring a 29 year old 5 days before a cup final because he was going to play reserves in the midweek league game.

Your statement is everything opposite the supposed club motto is about "the game is about glory".

We've got a shiny new stadium getting top 4 and still didnt support previous managers with these "higher profile signings" and be "more competitive".

Of course the top 4 is about money. lets not be so naive.

People keep spouting this. Since the stadium opened, we've one of the highest transfer spends in the league if I'm not mistaken. Like top 3-4. He backed Conte and Mourinho. Not to the extent I believed they should have been backed but the summer Bale came in and last summer, we brought in a lot of players. Transfer fees aren't really the problem.

For me, Levy is too cautious on wages. Our wages to turnover ratio has been the lowest in the league for years. Sometimes by a good distance. That, for me, has been where he's failed managers. We're still spending more on wages and transfers than we ever did by the way.

 

[JollyHappy]

Personally after all we have been through in the cups in the last few years I would have accepted Ange playing his full team last night then making a couple of changes away to Burnley. I'd have preferred a win last night and draw or defeat away to Burnley.

 

[DiVaio]

One thing Mourinho is actually rather good at is winning cup finals.

It's true. But it's only true when Mourinho team is favourite to win this final game. Remember checking the odds for that and pretty sure after Sevilla he's now lost 3 finals from 4 when he wasn't considered as favourite

 

[spursgirls]

So he's had a couple months and still doesn't know that Skipp (for example) can't take the ball on the turn...Not played any 1st team vs B team matches in training ?...can only find out about player's skillsets in competitive games ?
Doesn't sound right to me. The difference between A & B sides is glaringly obvious.

Its easy to see why some are speculating he's been given a brief that Prem is priority. Tho I don't believe it.

If he wanted to see them in a match he could have arranged a friendly game against another team. I'm sure there must be other teams who would want their players to have a run out too. What happened to the B league?

 

[spursgirls]

But I don't see how AP looked at that team last night and thought it would ever amount to much. He basically cut it's arms, legs, and head off. He took out most of the footballing ability (Bissouma, Maddison) and also a lot of the thrust and legs (Bissouma, Udogie, Sarr, Son, etc). What was left mostly was functional "do a job" support act players, that's alright if you need to drop in a few to your established team, but selecting all of them is just setting them up for a fail and I don't see what you're learning from it.

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This, this and this. All day long.

 

[jimbo]

People keep spouting this. Since the stadium opened, we've one of the highest transfer spends in the league if I'm not mistaken. Like top 3-4. He backed Conte and Mourinho. Not to the extent I believed they should have been backed but the summer Bale came in and last summer, we brought in a lot of players. Transfer fees aren't really the problem.

For me, Levy is too cautious on wages. Our wages to turnover ratio has been the lowest in the league for years. Sometimes by a good distance. That, for me, has been where he's failed managers. We're still spending more on wages and transfers than we ever did by the way.

Yeah, we've spent the 5th most (net) over the last 5 years behind Chelsea (circa £250m more), Man Utd (£200m), Arsenal (£180m) and Newcastle (20m) and we're above Villa in 6th by about £80m spent. We've spent roughly £70-80m per year, last season being a bit of an outlier presumably because of the cash injection (we spent £120m).

We spent a lot less than that in the seasons prior to the stadium move +/- <£15m pretty much. So, we've seen improvement but not exactly to 'game changer' levels.

Whereas our wages to turnover ratio is the typically the lowest in the league. Last I saw had us around 57%, whereas Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle are more like 75% and West Ham, Man Utd, Liverpool are more like 65%. The league average is 71% but that has a lot to do with promoted clubs.

Anyway, back Big Ange!

 

[Stuart Leathercock]

I don’t buy this. You think Mourinho went to Levy to sign off his midweek team sheet and Levy said no I’m not having it so sacked him?

I’m sure Levy makes league position number one priority but I don’t think he’s there signing off on team sheets every week.

Lol, of course Levy wasn't signing off team sheets. However the chairman and the manager speak quite regularly at Spurs.

Do you not find the timing of Mourinho's sacking rather strange?

 

[Metalhead]

I'm really disappointed with his answer saying "how am I going to find out about my players?" We had a whole preseason for that. Granted you rotate in the cups, but nine changes was an awful decision. After Burnley we don't play again for two weeks.

He is experienced enough to know that Skipp/PEH is a bad combo or that Dane at halftime isn't the best sub or that it is a bad idea to play without at least one of our captains/vice-captains.

Our best opportunity of a cup is now gone. He has done so much right so far, but last night was a huge blow for Ange in my opinion.

'Huge blow' is a subjective term. I'm hoping that he'll be around for more than one season and this is the very beginning of a long term project so it's frustrating but I wouldn't call it a huge blow.