Based on the last 18 months of his time with us and his time at Forest? Just a guess of course
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The Overlap - some interesting comments from Ange
- Thread starter Goatleaf
- Start date
Based on the last 18 months of his time with us and his time at Forest? Just a guess of course
SteveAWOL
Erik Thorstvedt
FWIW from that “It’s who we are mate” game until the end of his tenure, our PL record was:
16th Won 23 Drawn 9 Lost 34 For 116 Against 117 Dif -1 Points per game 1.18
thfcsteff
Sonny Walters
Nothing at our mighty club is binary mate
But factually-speaking, no-one can ever say Ange Postecoglu was a 'failure' at Tottenham Hotspur; he won the Europa League. A trophy.
Incompetence? Maybe. That's an opinion and not one I'd agree with but certainly accept as a viewpoint.
The notion that he 'lowered standards' is, IMO, nonsense. The squad was crippled, and not just by his style of play, but also terrible staff recruitment (thanks Munn), and the attrition of over-playing international players which started in covid times and took in a ridiculous World Cup. Ange certainly showed some naivety, but I would argue that non-one could've got anything like he did from last season.
As for the price of the Europa League being a 'lowering of standards'? I'd counter that the TRUE price of the Europa League victory is the absolutye cowardice and 'power-point thinking' that somehow had our board thinking we needed a total reset (i.e. run hard from success because it didn't come from a 'platform' their 'data' said it should've), and the hubristically stupid decision to turf Levy at the END of the transfer window AFTER this 'great rest'. THAT decision as much as any is why we are where we currently are. You want to change the leadership? OK, risky move to do it fast, but at the very least, if you're throwing the hairy bearded baby out after Bilbao, then throw the bathwater out at the same time and give the whole fudging mess a summer to try and find it's feet. Instead, we go conservative cautious on the pitch AND THEN we sack off 25 years of mono-leadership for some 'new method' during the season? macarons. Seriously, fudging macarons!!!!! The same level of macarons which saw them then fudge the manager they'd hired (Frank) by not supporting him in the Jan window, and then sacking him AFTER the window and fudging the next guy in.
I think the 'lowering of standards' came from those middle management ultra-stat-model driven macarons who despite seeing what success tangibly looks like, brick themselves and got too clever about it all both on and off the pitch!
(JAYSUS i've gone off a bit there haven't I hahahahaha...thanks for letting me mate, and as always, offered in the spirit of both discussion and a touch of 'vent' I suppose hahahaha)...
thfcsteff
Sonny Walters
Liar or not he found a way to get them to get to that final and win. Even if he's the biggest trumper on the planet, the fact remains that he found a way to 'flimflam' that squad into winning a European trophy. I understand there is a level of cynicism towards him and contempt for those of us who bought the lines he was feeding, but again, the fact remains he sold those lines to the players and they won the trophy.
Maybe all we need in life is a trumper who makes us believe?!!!!!!!! The human condition part 593 LOL...
thfcsteff
Sonny Walters
It might have. It might not have. The fact is our pussy fudging board weren't prepared to gamble, despite silver evidence, ther power of hundred of thousands of happy supporters, and a squad who believed. Stop with the Forest stuff, it's a red herring to this discussion and you know it mate.
'...doesn't fit events that occurred'...the LAST event which occurred was winning in Bilbao and the streets of N17 being filled with hundreds of thousands of people. If you believe in narratives, the potential ascension of that narrative was massive. He was absolutely on point to call out 'to dare is to do' because we didn't. I saw people say that if he'd focussed more on the league he might've saved his job by finishing 11th or something; I am sure the thought occured to him, however that would've been the coward's move.
All I conclude on review is he saw, he dared to do, he actually threaded the eye of the needle and did it, and everyone around and above him shat themselves at the sheer volatile unpredicatable nature of the achievement (i.e. it didn't come from a spreadsheet-proven formula) and decided control was more important than momentum.
(I know we will never agree mate but I think Im on a roll as the previous posts here suggest so apologies LOL)
thfcsteff
Sonny Walters
Wellllll, in fairness, some laugh at those who bring up winning the Europa League as 'a thing'!!!!!
SteveAWOL
Erik Thorstvedt
tommysvr
Pat van den Hauwe
I imagine the Venn diagram of those who denigrate the Europa League win and those who think Forest has any relevance to anything is pretty close to a circle.
So no wins in 8 games is to be ignored? Thats another record he broke btw.
thfcsteff
Sonny Walters
I think it is honestly mate. Nothing to do with us whatsoever.
tommysvr
Pat van den Hauwe
Yes. The manager before him was sacked for personality reasons, leaving them in a state. The manager after him temporarily improved things but still ended up sacked. In between you had a manager the polar opposite in terms of style and he was given 39 days. It means fudge all in a Spurs context.
SissokoWasGood (BoL)
Pat van den Hauwe
I know it’s annoying to keep coming back to this but…we literally won a trophy! We had an unprecedented injury crisis! We finished 5th during his last 18 months! If you want to say everything else definitively proves Ange would get us relegated, fine. All I’m saying is that I think Ange would have given us a much better season had we not sacked him, than what we saw with Frank.
SissokoWasGood (BoL)
Pat van den Hauwe
Yes…I would love an actual discussion around whether the board are using the right decision making criteria because I think it’s the core issue. It’s beyond Ange. What data are using to model their decisions? What led them to Frank? Whether you think Ange was a good fit, surely there is some reasonable scepticism now about the overall decisions our board is making.
The position we’re now in…it’s so beyond Ange.
Bishop
Rafael Van Der Vaart
Obviously neither of us. They are just opinions on both sides.
Mine is based more on trends and yours moreso on emotion.
Bishop
Rafael Van Der Vaart
I wonder if the board actually thought Frank would be a total reset. There's a part of me that suspects they believed Frank would be more balanced in his approach and that he had a good foundation to work from.Nothing at our mighty club is binary mate
But factually-speaking, no-one can ever say Ange Postecoglu was a 'failure' at Tottenham Hotspur; he won the Europa League. A trophy.
Incompetence? Maybe. That's an opinion and not one I'd agree with but certainly accept as a viewpoint.
The notion that he 'lowered standards' is, IMO, nonsense. The squad was crippled, and not just by his style of play, but also terrible staff recruitment (thanks Munn), and the attrition of over-playing international players which started in covid times and took in a ridiculous World Cup. Ange certainly showed some naivety, but I would argue that non-one could've got anything like he did from last season.
As for the price of the Europa League being a 'lowering of standards'? I'd counter that the TRUE price of the Europa League victory is the absolutye cowardice and 'power-point thinking' that somehow had our board thinking we needed a total reset (i.e. run hard from success because it didn't come from a 'platform' their 'data' said it should've), and the hubristically stupid decision to turf Levy at the END of the transfer window AFTER this 'great rest'. THAT decision as much as any is why we are where we currently are. You want to change the leadership? OK, risky move to do it fast, but at the very least, if you're throwing the hairy bearded baby out after Bilbao, then throw the bathwater out at the same time and give the whole fudging mess a summer to try and find it's feet. Instead, we go conservative cautious on the pitch AND THEN we sack off 25 years of mono-leadership for some 'new method' during the season? macarons. Seriously, fudging macarons!!!!! The same level of macarons which saw them then fudge the manager they'd hired (Frank) by not supporting him in the Jan window, and then sacking him AFTER the window and fudging the next guy in.
I think the 'lowering of standards' came from those middle management ultra-stat-model driven macarons who despite seeing what success tangibly looks like, brick themselves and got too clever about it all both on and off the pitch!
(JAYSUS i've gone off a bit there haven't I hahahahaha...thanks for letting me mate, and as always, offered in the spirit of both discussion and a touch of 'vent' I suppose hahahaha)...
I doubt they believed it was a complete change needed as that would require investment and smart use of the market, something you can rarely ever accuse our leadership of being capable of.
So yeah I think there's a good chance, just like when they sacked Poch to pivot to Jose, and then Jose to Nuno and then Nuno to Conte and eventually Conte to Ange that play style and the associated requirements to support said play styles was never really considered or if it was it was never properly understood.
Muttley
Mauricio Taricco
Your sequence bothers me here. I would say that most of the losing happened before the penultimate game of his tenure when we became "winners". It's very possible that Ange made it perfectly acceptable across the 2 seasons he managed to lose as long as they followed his tactical instructions. He had them convinced that eventually his methods would prevail and they wouldn't lose so much. Obviously injuries and fatigue was a massive factor. I respected him for wanting to play in an impressive brand but wanted him to pay way more attention to his opposition on any match day.
As you probably know, my problem with Ange was that he set his stall out and tried to make "his way" work from day 1. He didn't build towards his final outcome and make the logical tactical steps (and transfers) to get there. He wouldn't compromise anything until he had to compromise everything, and then we parked that bus. I don't class that as good management. Great managers work with what they have and mould things their way over time using the resources they have. You see constant incremental improvements and sometimes something clicks and you see big change. We never saw that to be fair. I caveat that with the injury variable of course.
I guess my other big problem was that I never saw Ange-ball as going to work even if Ange could have hand picked from the best players in the world. I think it was a flawed tactical setup anyway.
So in the debate whether Ange normalised losing, I think it is how you define it. To me it's a little like Tudor not prioritising "not getting relegated". He doesn't prioritise that at all. He 100% prioritises the execution of the very next match. It's all he can do. So in Ange's mind he wasn't accepting losing but playing the long game to become winners above just the EL trophy. The problem may have become it wasn't Ange's head we were worried about. He wasn't on that pitch and I do think some players just found it OK to lose. IT didn't hurt as much as it absolutely should.
DeanoAustin
Ian Walker
When I say he lowered standards, I don't mean it was an intentional thing or something Ange did knowing the risk. IMO, it was a by-product of being so laser focused on winning the EL. I've never seen any team bin off the league like we did to win a cup so what that was going to mean longer term was unknown IMO.Nothing at our mighty club is binary mate
But factually-speaking, no-one can ever say Ange Postecoglu was a 'failure' at Tottenham Hotspur; he won the Europa League. A trophy.
Incompetence? Maybe. That's an opinion and not one I'd agree with but certainly accept as a viewpoint.
The notion that he 'lowered standards' is, IMO, nonsense. The squad was crippled, and not just by his style of play, but also terrible staff recruitment (thanks Munn), and the attrition of over-playing international players which started in covid times and took in a ridiculous World Cup. Ange certainly showed some naivety, but I would argue that non-one could've got anything like he did from last season.
As for the price of the Europa League being a 'lowering of standards'? I'd counter that the TRUE price of the Europa League victory is the absolutye cowardice and 'power-point thinking' that somehow had our board thinking we needed a total reset (i.e. run hard from success because it didn't come from a 'platform' their 'data' said it should've), and the hubristically stupid decision to turf Levy at the END of the transfer window AFTER this 'great rest'. THAT decision as much as any is why we are where we currently are. You want to change the leadership? OK, risky move to do it fast, but at the very least, if you're throwing the hairy bearded baby out after Bilbao, then throw the bathwater out at the same time and give the whole fudging mess a summer to try and find it's feet. Instead, we go conservative cautious on the pitch AND THEN we sack off 25 years of mono-leadership for some 'new method' during the season? macarons. Seriously, fudging macarons!!!!! The same level of macarons which saw them then fudge the manager they'd hired (Frank) by not supporting him in the Jan window, and then sacking him AFTER the window and fudging the next guy in.
I think the 'lowering of standards' came from those middle management ultra-stat-model driven macarons who despite seeing what success tangibly looks like, brick themselves and got too clever about it all both on and off the pitch!
(JAYSUS i've gone off a bit there haven't I hahahahaha...thanks for letting me mate, and as always, offered in the spirit of both discussion and a touch of 'vent' I suppose hahahaha)...
I never saw this season coming in a million years. I remember at the start of the season, on Talksport, Cundy was taking the tinkle out of O'Hara saying "you finished 17th last year" and O'Hara replying "Come on Jase, you know that's not going to happen again". And I wholeheartedly agreed. Last season was a one off, a by-product of us focusing on the EL.
Hindsight gives a better perspective. Our last 14 home games last season - 2 wins, 3 draws and 9 defeats I think. If I'm not wrong, it's identical to this season's record pretty much. We only once finished lower than 8th in 21 years and usually finished top 6, last year we finished 17th. This year, we'd probably all take 17th at this point. That's more than a step change in terms of regression, that's a pretty seismic fall from grace. Unprecedented in my time watching English football.
You hear coaches talk about how important the "feeling" is around a club. You hear people in the game talk about how losing becomes a habit. You hear Tudor talk about our players having bad habits. The trainwreck of last season has had an impact on this season IMO. It's far from the only reason but it's very difficult to argue that such a drop off from the last 20 years straight didn't begin when Ange decided the league was nothing more than an inconvenience.
Robspur12
Steffen Iversen
May be we didn’t “bin off” the league, perhaps we were just not good enough. Ange knew it so focussed on the EL. There are a so many different permutations we’ll never know. But I was sure, even with the EL success Ange had not built either a team or a system that would use that success as a platform for continuing it. We were not even playing his preferred style to win it. I said it at the time, the win was a one off like the Ramos and Graham wins rather than heralding a new era of success. In many ways he’s been lucky - he got out while the going was good (unlike Ramos and Graham); this season would have been a disaster for him imho.
Edit: I agree with you that the league form mattered last season even when we supposedly had nothing left to play for and it’s not just about the unacceptable final position or number of games lost. We had been struggling so to change that, Ange should have been using those games to test and tweak his system, getting the squad ready for this season. That he didn’t, did us a huge disservice and meant that Frank basically had to pick up a squad that was not acclimatised to winning in the league. Now Frank didn’t have enough in his locker to change that but he started the season with one hand tied behind his back. Given how Frank just continued the pattern of losing, even if we are not relegated, I think next season is going to be tough for a new manager again.
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