Ange Postecoglou enters the international break with two weeks to get his team’s top-four tilt back on track as Tottenham targets a Champions League berth in his first season in charge.
Although ask the Australian about guaranteeing a place in Europe’s elite competition and he will continually echo a similar sentiment.
That what he is building is greater than just Champions League qualification. That a top-four finish won’t be Tottenham’s “Willy Wonka golden ticket”, putting Spurs on an unassailable path to greatness.
Ange’s Spurs suffer shock defeat | 01:11
“Fourth is not my end goal. I don’t want to finish fourth if we haven’t grown as a team and developed as a team,” Postecoglou said after Tottenham’s recent 3-0 defeat to Fulham.
“Success is built on more tangible stuff.
“If we finish fifth and I think we’ve got a team to challenge next (season), then I won’t be disappointed.”
In an industry so often defined by results and outcomes, Postecoglou instead is more interested in the process.
And that isn’t to say that Postecoglou will stubbornly accept any defeat as part of that process, only last weekend telling reporters his team was “careless” on the ball in the loss to Fulham.
“We were too keen to get forward. We lacked some conviction in our last third play,” he said.
“It’s part of our growth. Feel that pain and learn from it. It does go down as a bad day at the office but we don’t accept it.”
Postecoglou’s authentic and straight-shooting approach is a large part of his appeal, along with the aggressive, front-foot style of football that he likes his teams to play with of course.
But it is the main reason why former Tottenham manager Tim Sherwood can’t stop talking about how impressed he is by Postecoglou in his first season at the helm.
“I love him, I love Ange,” said Sherwood on Optus Sport after the Fulham defeat.
“I think he is authentic. You want to have a drink with him in the pub.”
And he’s not the only one to say that. Football journalist Julien Laurens said similar last year on The Optus Sport Football Podcast, speaking to the way Postecoglou has also won over the media with his unique approach.
Although approach may not even be the right word because that seems to insinuate something calculated, something intentional. This is just who Postecoglou is.
“From a London-based point of view, Ange has been great with everybody,” Laurens said at the time.
“The club, the tea ladies, the young players, the other managers, everybody at the club loves him.
“He’s that kind of guy. He’s such a fun guy, he’s so warm. And then with the media as well, some of the press conferences have been brilliant because he talks about football, but he also talks like if he was your mate at the pub.
“It would have been such a shame for him, and he would have never changed anyway, but imagine if he thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to Spurs now, maybe I need to behave a little bit differently or be different’, but no, he’s himself and that’s great.”
Ange: Champions League won’t change plan | 01:03
You only have to look at Postecoglou’s response earlier in the week to a question about Tottenham’s decision to increase season-ticket prices as one journalist suggested it could be a way of targeting foreign fans.
Or the “plastic fans”, as the journalist referred to them.
“See that’s really harsh,” Postecoglou responded.
“I’ll tell you why: because I’m probably ‘plastic’ and ‘tourist’, because I was coming from the other side of the world, really passionate about football, and if I could get access to see a Premier League game, that was the world to me.
“This football club has supporters all over the world, has supporters all over the UK that don’t always get access to the games of people who live here.”
It would’ve been easy for Postecoglou to just dismiss the question, palming it off as something beyond his control. But he understands the power of those 90 minutes every week.
“Let them dream, that’s what being a football supporter is all about and, fair to say, this lot have suffered a bit,” Postecoglou said last year amid Tottenham’s stunning start to the season.
And it is not just a one-way street either, as Postecoglou explained after seeing young Tottenham fan Owen Bright again last week, having first met him at the club’s Fans Forum event in September.
“I get a lot of joy out of it too, mate,” Postecoglou said, with vision from Tottenham following Postecoglou as he showed Bright a picture of the pair proudly on display in his office.
“It is not every day you walk out to training and someone runs up to give you a hug. It’s not the usual greeting I get.
“…. As much as we understand particularly the players, they are their heroes and the joy they give them, we get equal joy out of it mate because it’s such a fantastic feeling to see people who are passionate about their football club and how much joy it gives them.
“It’s just a privilege to be in that space.”
Again, Postecoglou’s interaction with Bright is telling of the broader message that the Australian lives by every time he steps on the field, knowing the power of football to bring people together and change lives.
“I have come to understand this. It’s not about winning or losing, it’s about the connections it makes,” Postecoglou wrote for Athletes Voice back in 2018, reflecting on his late father and the role football played in bringing them closer together.
“It connects people, cities and countries. It connects parents to their children.”
For Sherwood, Postecoglou’s authenticity is what gives him confidence that Tottenham’s 3-0 defeat to Fulham will just be a mere blip on the radar.
That this reality check, if you will, is just part of the process and learning that is natural for a squad still trying to find its way.
“He is a manager who isn’t going to beat around the bush,” Sherwood said.
“Whatever he tells you is the truth. He will tell his friends that and he will tell the media that. He isn’t an actor. This guy is authentic and you have to believe him when he says that.
“It’s like picking out the goals conceded, they know they’ve got to get better at that but look at the goals they’ve scored. They can’t be fourth or fifth in the league without scoring enough goals if they’ve conceded that many.
“The Tottenham fans are used to conceding a lot of goals. The last four or five years… it’s been paint watching Tottenham dry — not anymore.
“This guy is brilliant. He is absolutely top draw. The fans want to go and watch it. They never leave until the end because you are always on the edge of your seat.”
Sherwood conceded it was a “bad day” for Spurs but did not waver from his belief that “they are the favourites to finish in the top four this season”.
And even if they don’t, like Postecoglou, the former Tottenham boss also seems to be completely bought into what the Australian is building.
“What he’s given them is a style,” Sherwood later added.
“What he’s brought back is a happiness. What he’s done is take the cloud away from the club. Everybody wants to watch Tottenham play now.
“It was never ever anyone’s second team. Now peoples’ second team are that man’s team because of him.”