Spurs fans saying they like the cut of Ange's jib

FANS EXCITED: Spurs fans are excited to see what Ange Postecoglou can bring to the table. Pic: James Warwick

OF course, it had been planned all along. As the club said in its statement announcing the appointment of Ange Postecoglou as manager: “Now that the season and all domestic cup competitions have concluded, we are delighted to announce the appointment of Ange Postecoglou as our new First Team Head Coach.” 

There was no bungled appointment of Antonio Conte’s assistant as the new Antonio Conte, no throwing of Ryan Mason to the wolves again as everything fell apart, no pursuit of any of the names the club had been linked with – that was all made up by journalists apparently – no vainglorious denial of interest in candidates who weren’t interested anyway.

No, it had always been the intention to wait more than 60 days after the last manager did what he clearly signalled he was going to do in December and appoint someone who barely appeared in the frame even weeks ago. However bad things are at Spurs, you can always be sure the board never make mistakes and once again they have come to the rescue. Let’s hope they don’t get let down yet again by the useless idiots they appoint.

Now, it’s clear Ange Postecoglou is far from a useless idiot. In fact, many of us see him as a breath of fresh air. Here is someone who is clearly a decent human being, with strong feelings about how football should be bold and entertaining, who understands the connections the game makes with people. And, let’s be honest, who is not a sociopath or narcissist intent on preserving his own reputation above all else. 

That will make a welcome change from much of the last four years. As will having a coach who actually makes an effort to coach players rather than complain he hasn’t got other ones.

If big Ange can make football at Spurs fun again, that will be some achievement. Frankly, it’s been bloody awful for too long – the stuff on the pitch and the poisonous atmosphere off it. There’s a lot to like about the videos of speeches and motivational talks being circulated feverishly, and about the football Postecolglou’s teams have played. 

The fun factor kicked in almost immediately after the announcement of the Premier League’s first Australian manager, so to get the punfest over with and tee up next season’s sports subs with some headline material, we’ve decided that To Dare is to Didgeredoo, we wallaby in that number, this is great news for Skippy (Oliver) and we hope the first achievement is to successfully tie me Harry Kane down, sport.

Tottenham start the new season away to Brentford on Sunday August 13 and most fans just want to support their team, and most are eager to embrace the positives and hope the club’s reverse Midas touch doesn’t kick in. 

There are some who have decided this is a catastrophe already, a stance variously rooted in needing to be absolutely against anything the current board does and having an inflated idea of how attractive the Spurs job is to rational people.

But there are reasonable doubts it is harder to look beyond. And the main one is about whether Postecoglou has what it takes to succeed in the Premier League. Harbouring that doubt doesn’t necessarily mean you are harbouring the delusions of grandeur it is currently popular to depict Spurs fans as displaying. It means you wonder if the new manager’s preferred style is too open, too expansive, and you worry about how Celtic – miles ahead in Scotland – were exposed against European opposition.

There are other worries too, and like so much at Spurs, they all come back ultimately to the executive board. If they’ve chosen Postecoglou – many feel – there must be something wrong. After all, the most successful managers of their tenure have either stepped in to clear up the mess caused by their first choice (Martin Jol and Harry Redknapp) or been appointed after missing out on a first choice (Mauricio Pochettino). Has their lack of football knowledge been deployed again? Or has the appointment been made because the board feel they can control their man? Twenty two years of rinse and repeat have made people wary.

Intriguing is the word that best describes the appointment – which is perhaps a bit too nuanced for many. But the intrigue is what piques the excitement, because Postecoglou is clearly not a 'yes' man (he walked from the Australia job because of the internal politics, so God knows what he’ll make of Spurs), and because the glimpses we’ve seen offer some hope of making the kind of emotional reconnection we need.

So much about Postecoglou’s approach is what we want, but we are also savvy enough to detect why all this emotional connection and attitude stuff is being sold hard. What will matter are results, and being backed over player choices.

At least the new manager won’t think he’s too good for the club. We’ve had enough of that. But he doesn’t look like he’ll be afraid to knock a few people down a peg or two. He’s brave – taking on a job when there is no director of football, a major squad rebuild needed, and pride and identity to revive. Far more fans than I expected are saying they like the cut of his jib.

Maybe the appointment shows the board has acknowledged its past mistakes. Maybe this is the reset that’s long been needed. Postecoglou’s biggest challenge will be to get the time he needs, because 22 years of blunders and the absence of emotional intelligence have exhausted the patience of most. The nagging suspicion that he could succeed, but the board would then succeed in lousing everything up by being too clever by half again, will never be far away.