Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham Hotspur style is entertaining, but not sustainable

When it all clicks at Tottenham Hotspur, they’re a marvellous side to watch, however, too often are teams exposing the flaws in their entertaining brand of football, and that might not be sustainable for Ange Postocoglou, writes Martin Samuel.

Are you not entertained? Well, frankly, no.

Maybe as a neutral, or as a person who likes those all-action highlights reels that fill space on sports channels when no live events are on.

But as a paying customer, or a Tottenham Hotspur fan, it would be pushing it a bit to imagine that going 5-1 down at home to Liverpool and then, with 18 minutes left, pulling back a couple of consolation goals is now classed as thrilling. Not least when, made to start taking it seriously again, Liverpool went straight down the other end and scored the sixth.

It was December 1997 when Tottenham previously shipped six in a home game, against Chelsea. They were drawing 1-1 at half-time, then collapsed. Gerry Francis had recently resigned as manager and Christian Gross was the new incumbent. Tottenham were up against a team who included Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Di Matteo, Dennis Wise and Graeme Le Saux and who could summon Gianluca Vialli and Mark Hughes from the bench.

Chelsea would win the League Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup that season, finishing fourth; Tottenham would get dumped out of the FA Cup by Barnsley and end up 14th.

The difference now is that Tottenham’s manager is into his second year, the modern club had pretensions to enter a Super League not so long ago, and conceding six at home has somehow been rebranded as part of the club’s make-up. It’s what they do, and all in the name of entertainment.

Pressure is building on Ange Postecoglou reas Tottenham continue to under-perform. Picture: Glyn KIRK / AFP)

Ange Postecoglou was asked if another rollercoaster ride could be expected before the Liverpool game, and smilingly acquiesced. Later he seemed a little testy when asked if injuries had played a part in recent defensive debacles - it is now 13 goals conceded in the past three home games across all competitions - yet he can’t have it all ways. If Tottenham are depleted, then surely, adjust. If the goalkeeper Fraser Forster has two left feet, than stop making him play out from the back.

The consternation near the start gave Liverpool an advantage from which they never looked back. They did not score when Forster passed straight to Mohamed Salah, but immediately had confidence they would. Compare that with Chelsea, banging their head against a wall up at Everton an hour before. Just as happened away to Arsenal this month, Sean Dyche’s team made plain that they were not going to take any chances or do anything daft. Chelsea, who could have gone top and applied pressure to Liverpool, played out the tamest of goalless draws and barely looked like scoring.

And were we not entertained? No, not that time, either. Yet that’s the point of entertainment in sport. It’s contextual. It’s not the cinema, it’s not the panto, and its appeal is different for everybody.

In its own way, for Evertonians, that turgid 0-0 was as much fun as can be had upright. Bored the pants off the rest of us, frustrated the hell out of Chelsea, but it was, in the circumstances, quite brilliant. Cole Palmer kept at arm’s length, Jordan Pickford not greatly active.

Spurs were humbled at home by Liverpool 6-3. Picture: Alex Pantling/Getty Images

The moment it became plain that Enzo Maresca was not going to change his style of play despite the wind blowing an absolute hoolie around Goodison Park, Everton dug in, sat tight and let Chelsea have the ball in the many areas of the pitch where it did not matter.

Once they advanced, it was different. On the rare occasions Chelsea went long, when the gale caught the ball and made it do strange things, there was panic in Everton’s back line, as there would have been among any group of defenders. Yet Chelsea tried this so rarely - and only then under sufferance, usually if forced into a hurried clearance - that it wasn’t a factor. Chelsea have principles and a way of playing and stick to them, even when it is very obvious they are not working.

In that respect, they are not dissimilar to Tottenham under Postecoglou. It is great that a manager wants his team on the front foot and, when it works, the method is envied by just about every group of fans. The crowd at West Ham United tired of David Moyes’s pragmatism sooner because of the football being played down the road.

Can Ange turns things around? Picture: Glyn KIRK / AFP

Despite changes of manager at several Premier League clubs recently, the firefighters of old - Moyes, Sam Allardyce - are not hearing their phones ring, because coaches like Postecoglou have rendered them outdated. The same happened to a manager like George Graham 20 years ago, when the likes of Kevin Keegan came along.

What Postecoglou is trying to achieve has undoubted appeal. Tottenham’s followers have sat through some pretty turgid stuff in recent years, and the excitement around Postecoglou was understandable. Yet it is disingenuous to talk about entertainment just because there were nine goals in Sunday’s game. The scoreline flattered the losers. Liverpool were so much better than a three-goal winning margin.

Good winners, Tottenham. That’s the crux of it. When they win, they win so well it almost obscures what happens in those other weeks. This Premier League campaign has featured seven wins and in those games Tottenham have never scored fewer than three goals. It amounts to 27 in total: 4, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5. There are two other clubs also on seven wins: Brentford have scored 25 goals in their run, Newcastle United 17.

There are also three teams on eight wins, and none have won as emphatically as Tottenham, because Bournemouth and Manchester City have scored 20 goals each in their victories, Aston Villa 19. Nottingham Forest have scored 17 goals in their nine wins, Arsenal 27. So Tottenham are exceptional in the way they sometimes get hold of an opponent. When it all clicks it is marvellous to watch. And, yes, that’s entertainment.

Yet that’s markedly different from Sunday’s game, and there is the disconnect. It is no wonder Arne Slot praised Postecoglou before Sunday’s game. Every manager must hope he keeps it as open as this. Yes, there is danger of walking on to one, as seven teams have done this season. Yet there is an equal chance of what happened in the opening hour of Liverpool’s visit, when Tottenham conceded five and it could have been eight, or ten.

And are we not entertained? Well, yes, in a way. But not in a way that is sustainable for the club laying on that entertainment, who sit 16 points off Liverpool, but 17 ahead of Southampton and enter the Christmas period in the bottom half of the table for the first time since 2008-09. Because put like that, it doesn’t seem much fun at all.

Originally published as Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham Hotspur style is entertaining, but not sustainable