Ange Postecoglou: No pressure on Tottenham boss despite recent poor run of results for Spurs

Ange Postecoglou is not under pressure at Tottenham despite recent poor results.

Spurs have suffered back-to-back defeats after Sunday's 4-3 home defeat to Chelsea, and have won just one of their last five Premier League games since beating Aston Villa 4-1 before the latest international break.

However, head coach Postecoglou, who has a good working relationship with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy, will be given time during a hectic Christmas period to turn around his side's fortunes.

Jamie Carragher said on Super Sunday that Postecoglou would be out of a job by the end of the season if he continued to play the same brand of football he has promoted so far, but while the club acknowledges the recent run has been poor, injuries have been sustained . A host of first-choice players, including centre-backs Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero, have had a significant impact.

Despite their faltering league form, Spurs face Manchester United in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup next week, while a win over Rangers on Thursday will put them in a strong position in the Europa League standings.

Postecoglou was also involved in meetings with technical director Johan Lange about the possibilities of doing business during the January transfer window to help improve the club's fortunes.

More to follow…

Carra: If Ange doesn't change, he won't remain Spurs boss

Carragher believes Postecoglou must change his style if he wants to remain Tottenham boss after back-to-back defeats.

“Ange said how well they played [against Chelsea]. I can't imagine any Liverpool manager I played for – and we conceded four in a game – saying in the interview that we played well. If you play this way you get the result like Manchester City, but you also get results like this where you are 2-0 up. I've never understood managers saying we play a 'certain way and we'll never change'. I think it started with Pep Guardiola at Barcelona.

“The idea that wherever they play, they will play their way. But that was the best team I have ever seen. Pep Guardiola then had to change his Man City team, which won the leagues every season, by replacing the centre-backs to full strength. -back. This idea that you can't change is foreign to me. The game state determines how you play, not always, but if you go to a difficult field, you should not play the same way you do. against a team at the bottom.

“There is the idea of ​​playing a pure game and the Tottenham fans are singing 'We have our Tottenham back', but you don't win anything, you don't challenge.

“I wake up every morning hoping the sun will shine so I can put on shorts and a T-shirt, but if it rains you put on your jacket. You can't have the idea of ​​playing one way , it won.” If it doesn't change, he won't be here next season.”

Redknapp: Spurs must prioritize Carabao Cup

Spurs are still in the hunt for a trophy under Postecoglou, with his side doing well in the Europa League and looking towards a Carabao Cup quarter-final at home to Manchester United this month, live on Sky Sports.

They will also fully expect to play in the fourth round of the FA Cup after heading away to non-League Tamworth next month.

Postecoglou said after the Chelsea match: “There is still plenty of play for us between now and January to make sure we continue to perform.

“I still feel like there's a real belief within this squad in what we're doing and if we keep that up we'll turn our season around and hopefully at some point we'll be in some calmer waters, just in terms of Some of the things that are happening at the moment are partly our own fault, but hopefully we can achieve a little more consistency.”

Postecoglou claimed earlier this season that he is “always winning things” in his second year in charge and Jamie Redknapp believes ending the club's 16-year trophy drought will be his priority amid a disappointing league campaign.

Redknapp told Sky Sports: “They have to win a trophy, that's the stick they're going to be beaten with. If they win a trophy this year it will give them confidence and belief that they can get into the top four.”

“They need to change the history of this club. For too long they have had the attitude of not being successful and letting people down. Whereas if they win a trophy it will give Ange some breathing space.”

“They have Manchester United in the Carabao Cup, they can win that. If you look at the winners of that trophy lately, it's Man City, Man Utd or Liverpool. Winning that is more important than finishing in the top four. “

“The owners may not agree with that, but it would be great for the fanbase and the players.”

The former Spurs midfielder added: “As a Tottenham fan it was [Antonio] Conte, who was pragmatic; they had [Jose] Mourinho – didn't work; they had Nuno [Espirito Santo] – didn't work here.

'Now you have achieved the opposite [end of the] scale and for Tottenham fans who played ten, fifteen games last season they thought: 'This is it, we've found it. This man is going to make us play good football, expansive, we are going to win.”

“You've gone from one extreme to the other and it feels like we've said the same thing over the last 10 years when we came to watch Tottenham.

“I just don't know exactly which way they're going to go, because if you fire him, where else are you going to go?”

Postecoglou's Spurs flatter to deceive again

Sky Sports' Adam Bate:

Postecoglou pointed to narrow margins when his Tottenham team came on the wrong end in a seven-goal thriller against Chelsea and a generous interpretation of events might conclude he had a point. The same can be said of Spurs' season.

Six more points and they would sit handily fifth, one point behind Manchester City. A few wins from games against Crystal Palace, Ipswich and Bournemouth would have been enough. Or how about maintaining that two-goal lead at Brighton?

But the reality is that Postecoglou's Tottenham continue to leak that two-goal lead and they continue to leak points. It's not bad luck. It's starting to feel like a consequence of the coach's mantra, one that prioritizes style of play over navigating the nuances of the game.

There was no sign of control, even when he conceded two goals through early miscues by Marc Cucurella. The result is that, however small those margins are, Spurs are now in the bottom half of the Premier League after fifteen games. They have lost more than they have won.

Of the seventeen teams that have played in the Premier League both this season and last, only two have lost more games in the competition than Tottenham since Christmas. Dominic Solanke arrived in the summer, but the other signings were young talents.

As a result, are signs of progress imminent? For all the talk of trophies in the second season, this might be his Spurs. “Tottenham are so close to being a good team,” Carragher said in a co-commentary for Sky Sports. 'But they always let you down.

Tottenham's upcoming matches

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