‘Just madness’: Ange reveals truth behind cheeky dig... and 100-year ‘creed’ that could save Spurs
Ange Postecoglou is hoping the ‘Stonecutter’s Credo’ can help Tottenham salvage a season that has gone “disastrously wrong” by winning the Europa League.
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Ange Postecoglou is hoping the ‘Stonecutter’s Credo’ can help Tottenham salvage a season that has gone “disastrously wrong” by winning the Europa League.
Postecoglou is fighting to save his job after a dismal campaign that sees Tottenham head to Liverpool on Monday morning (AEST) languishing in 16th place in the Premier League.
Defeat for Tottenham at Anfield would match their record number of top-flight losses in a single season at 19.
Liverpool need just a draw to clinch the title and another negative result seems certain for Postecoglou, whose only hope of avoiding the axe lies in the Europa League.
Tottenham, who haven’t won a major trophy since the 2008 League Cup, host Bodo/Glimt in the semi-final first leg on Thursday.
Amid a painful season of underachievement, Postecoglou brought up the story of the ‘Stonecutter’s Credo’ -- first mentioned by Danish-American writer Jacob Riis more than a century ago -- as an example of how you never know when the breakthrough moment will arrive.
“I talk to the players a lot about the Stonecutter’s creed,” Postecoglou told reporters on Friday.
“Only the 101st blow cracks the rock, but no one sees the other 100 blows. And they think it’s the last one that does it. It’s not.
“So, time will tell whether what I’ve tried to do over the last two years gets us to crack that stone. If not, maybe I haven’t, but you won’t know that and you won’t know how much I’ve had an impact until we get to that place.
“What it says is, if you keep doing the right thing, the impact it has is unseen because you won’t break it with the 101st blow unless you’ve done a lot of things which, to the naked eye, seems like you’re doing nothing or maybe the wrong thing,. But the stonecutter knows you need to keep doing it because it’ll come.”
While Tottenham’s last result in the Premier League was a loss to Nottingham Forest, a Europa League quarter-final victory earlier in the week kept Postecoglou’s trophy bid alive and the Australian signed off his press conference with a cheeky dig.
“So, unfortunately for a lot of you, you’re going to have to put up with me for a little bit longer, mate, so let’s see how that goes,” he said.
Some fans were left unsure whether the dig was directed at them, although Postecoglou unequivocally shut that down on Saturday.
“It wasn’t directed to the fans, and there was a bit of irony there. Do you guys not have a sense of humour? Seriously?” he said.
“... Maybe it’s my Aussie humour but it certainly gets lost a great number of times when I say things tongue-in-cheek. If people would seriously think I would say to our supporters that ‘you’re going to have put up with me for a little bit longer’, it’s just madness, that would never be the case.”
Former Celtic boss Postecoglou boasted earlier this term that he always wins a trophy in his second season in charge.
Despite Tottenham’s dismal form, they remain in with a chance of backing up the Australian’s bold claim, to even his surprise.
“I’m trying to change the perception of the club. I think there is this narrative of trying to set this club up for some sort of fall, consistently and there is no allowance for any kind of building of foundations for something a bit different than before,” Postecoglou said.
“The one thing you do know is you know what doesn’t work here. Yes, I’m trying to do things very differently.
“It hasn’t all worked out, for sure - some of it has gone disastrously wrong, I accept that - but I said from the start, we need to chart a different course if we are ever going to break the cycle that this club has been in.
“Bizarrely, we’re still in that position where we can do that.”
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