Eh, I’m not sure how I feel about this appointment. Tottenham have gone in a completely new direction for management once again as they have hired Celtic’s Ange Postecoglou to be their next manager.
Spurs really are the most erratic club with managerial appointments…well, just behind Watford, that is.
Tottenham Hotspur have made their 7th managerial hire in the last four years with the signing of Ange Postecoglou from Celtic, ensuring the club will now implement yet another new coaching style and status onto a group of players that simply have nothing else left in the tank. And, even though I think Postecoglou has the potential of being a really competent manager in the Premier League, I don’t think this is the club for him to take that next step.
Just putting out the obvious facts, Ange Postecoglou has little to no experience playing or coaching at the highest professional level.
In his nearly 40-year career playing professional football, the Australian manager has only played in the domestic Australian leagues (specially, he played 196 games for South Melbourne), he’s coached South Melbourne, Brisbane Roar, Melbourne Victory and the Australian National team, he went abroad to coach Japan’s Yokohama F. Marinos, and he’s spent the last two seasons up in Scotland coaching Celtic.
Not the most prolific managerial or playing resume compared to the managers in Europe’s top leagues today.
Now, I will grant that Postecoglou was an excellent coach for these sides as he won the Australian top-flight domestic title twice for South Melbourne in 1997 and 1998 and the 1999 Oceania Club Championship, he won two Australian top-flight domestic titles for Brisbane Roar in 2011 and 2012, he qualified Australia for the 2014 and 2018 World Cups, he won the Japanese top-flight domestic title for Yokohama F. Marinos in 2019, and he’s won two Scottish Premiership titles (2022, 2023), two Scottish League Cups (2022, 2023), the Scottish Cup (2023), and completed the Scottish domestic treble this past season.
Still, I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t look up all of his accomplishments right before I listed them before you as I had no idea any of this stuff even happened (aside from the Australia national team and Celtic accomplishments), let alone it was Postecoglou who presided over them.
Winning all of these trophies in Japan, Australia, and Scotland just can’t compare to the achievements of a Premier League manager who makes the Top-6, such as Brighton and Roberto Di Zerbi this past year, given the extreme and stark differences in quality between the leagues.
I can’t attest to the overall quality of the leagues in Japan or Australia as I simply don’t know anything about the leagues, but I can attest to the fact that winning a title for Celtic is about as easy as a farmer milking a cow. Sure, you might get kicked in the teeth once in a blue moon if you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing, but 99/100 times you’re going to get the milk out of the utter.
And that’s how it is with Celtic and winning titles. They might get beaten by Rangers once a decade, but the other 9 times, the Scottish Premiership title is going to Celtic Park.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t even compare a manager coming from Holland or Belgium or Greece or Ukraine, such as Erik Ten Hag (Holland) with Manchester United, Vincent Kompany (Belgium) with Burnley (who were promoted to the Premier League this year), Marco Silva (Greece) with Hull City/Fulham, and Roberto De Zerbi (Ukraine) with Shakhtar Donetsk, to be comparable to the level of competition Postecoglou has faced in Japan, Australia, and Scottland.
I’m not trying to insult Postecoglou or the clubs he has managed, but the facts are the facts. And the fact is clubs like Celtic, Melbourne Victory, Brisbane Roar, Yokahama F. Marinos, and South Melbourne don’t prepare you even in the slightest for a Premier League job, let alone a job with one of the “traditional Top-6” clubs.
As for the job he’s going to face with Spurs, he’s going to have to complete overhaul this entire squad with a limited transfer budget and massive fan expectations, he’s going to have to qualify for a European position despite the fact the Premier League has at least 10 teams vying for the seven spots into Europe, he’s going to deal with the inevitable will he-won’t he transfer saga with Harry Kane, and he’s going to have Daniel Levy over his head.
That’s a difficult task for the likes of Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Carlo Ancelotti, Zinedine Zidane, etc. to accomplish, let alone someone who’s never faced the pressures of a club in the Top-7 European Leagues (England, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, and the Netherlands).
We’ll have to wait and see if Postecoglou can prove all his doubter wrong (which I hope he can), but I just don’t see it happening at Spurs.
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