Ange Postecoglou is in the Erik ten Hag death spiral
The manager’s increasingly odd behaviour shows he knows the stakes as Spurs face a crunch Europa League quarter-final against Eintracht Frankfurt
At Tottenham Hotspur, there’s a familiar tone. Ange Postecoglou had attempted a call to arms as the club gets closer to a first trophy since 2008, but not even he could resist sparking discussion about his own immediate future.
A press conference that started with the Spurs manager talking about having to “make the most” of a Europa League quarter-final evolved into Postecoglou volunteering references to articles discussing whether he would go regardless, and even name-checking journalists. The generous interpretation of this is that it is classic siege mentality amid a difficult period for the team. Except, most of the difficulty has been around the manager’s performance. It’s not about the players, it’s him, and when a coach starts getting involved in debates about his own media coverage it isn’t a good sign.
That may feel unfair, and it’s hard not to have sympathy with someone facing such harsh discussions about themselves, but it is the reality of elite football.
There is of course one way to make a statement that matters. That is to win games, and particularly a crunch match like a Europa League quarter-final against a fine Eintracht Frankfurt side.
Three of Tottenham’s eight wins across 20 games of 2025 so far may have come in the Europa League, but performances haven’t exactly been encouraging. The narrow aggregate victory over a moderate Dutch side like AZ Alkmaar almost ended up causing more alarms, because of the nature of the display.
For a long time this season, it was easy to understand Spurs’ form, because Postecoglou had endured several injuries and the squad wasn’t exactly stacked. Notional rivals like Aston Villa and Newcastle United had surpassed them in their wage bill. Postecoglou himself would bring up the injuries all the time.
Except, now that players like Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero are back, results and performances have stayed at the same level. It is as if the poor form from earlier in the season has had such a profound effect, and caused so many more issues, that the manager is now struggling to work his way out of it.
Except, some of the more critical voices around Spurs would say this goes much further back than injuries. They would point to how points return has plummeted from Postecoglou’s first 10 games. The optimism that airy period created now feels such a remove from what is going on now.
For all the emotion that has come into this, there are rational explanations.
Postecoglou was attempting to educate Spurs in a totally new ideology, that was a complete change from the tactical philosophies of all of the previous three managers. This can take time and those who work in coaching circles often talk about how it is comparable to any educational process. There is an immediate uplift from the initial impact – roughly a 10-game period – until a deeper immersion in a next stage brings more inconsistency and difficulties.
Pep Guardiola endured exactly this in his first season at Manchester City. One difference was that he started to right it. Those at Spurs might fairly say this was aided by over £200m of expenditure in his next summer, but Guardiola started to see progress before that. Postecoglou has not.
The inability to keep a Champions League place ahead of Aston Villa, especially in a season where Manchester United plummeted, was arguably one of the biggest checks against him.
And there are many parallels with United under their then-manager Erik ten Hag, right up to how a trophy might change Postecoglu’s future.
Ten Hag had attempted to introduce a new style to United, and did create an early feel-good phase with promising league form and a League Cup. He then endured a spate of injuries, with many sources questioning his training methods, and constantly got drawn into debates about that. And by the time he got players back, it was like Ten Hag couldn’t escape the funk that United had been drawn into. Even cup progress seemed to perpetuate the problem, as the FA Cup semi-final victory over Coventry City was so fortunate and unconvincing.
And then something changed. Ten Hag leaned into some of the better aspects of his time – including a willingness to listen to staff on tactics – to produce an inspired performance against Manchester City and win the FA Cup.
It is eminently possible Postecoglou can do similar. You don’t even need to go to the extremes of Ten Hag and United for countless examples of struggling teams who just find something different amid the self-contained magic of European nights. It has happened over the road in London, at both Arsenal and Chelsea.
Postecoglou, for his part, pointed to the importance of the crowd in that.
“With every European game, whether you were watching last night or tonight, whoever is playing at home the atmosphere makes a big impact, absolutely it does. I think it is a big part of European football. A lot of teams who have success in European football is on the back of really strong home atmosphere.”
It could have been argued that Postecoglou’s strange ear-cupping moment last week may have affected this, except Sunday against Southampton showed there is no real issue. What’s more, the home support will know what Thursday is really about.
The only danger is if it starts to go wrong.
Frankfurt are a good side, who have adapted superbly to the sale of Omar Marmoush, not to mention the previous departure of Oliver Glasner. A European level is maintained. They really fancy winning this tournament again themselves, just as they did in 2022.
It is instructive that Spurs’ own wait for a European trophy goes back much further, to the 1984 Uefa Cup.
That’s also why this tie is about issues of a far bigger scale, at the same time as it is about one man.
Postecoglou must find a way to offer the only response that really matters. The rest, including comparisons with Ten Hag, would only be noise amid greater glory.
That is what Spurs really have to focus on.
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