As crunch time rolls around, will Ange be steering the Spurs ship come January?

WHAT NEXT? Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou. Pic: Jane Barlow/PA Wire.

IT’S BEEN quite the week for Ange Postecoglou - and it is likely to be an even bigger seven days coming up.

The Tottenham manager has been in the news all week, initially with his position under intense scrutiny because of a poor run of form - just one win in eight games. After the most recent draw, at Rangers in the Europa League on Thursday, Postecoglou then hit the headlines for singling out Timo Werner for criticism, calling the German’s efforts in Glasgow “unacceptable”.

He was not in the mood to compromise or apologise the morning after the night before, doubling down on Tepid Timo ahead of Tottenham’s trip to Southampton on Sunday evening.

In a revealing press conference, the blunt Australian made it clear he is not messing around, nor in the mood to move on meekly nor tolerate any signs of weakness in his depleted ranks.

Spurs have a host of key players injured and suspended, and so Werner will have to take criticism on the chin and play on Sunday. “I’ve got no choice. Who else am I going to play?” 

He then went on to explain how he has had to get permission to take 16-year-old academy star Luca Williams-Barnett out of school to join the first-team squad for recent games at Galatasaray and Rangers. “I’m pulling kids out of school. I am literally getting notes from their teachers saying ‘Why is Luca not here?’ 

“That was the reasoning for my pointing it out last night. We need Timo. We need all of them. In normal times if you have a poor game, there’s a price to pay. It doesn’t exist right now when I’ve only got 15 fit players. We need everybody we’ve got.” 

It might sound like Postecoglou is under pressure and looking for excuses or a scapegoat, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The combative Greek-born Australian has fought the odds all hjs life and is not about to give up now.

"I am here, I am in for the fight. I am in a fight, for sure. For better or worse I am not going anywhere at the moment because everything is still in my power and my responsibility. I still have a real desire to get us through this stage so that people see what is on the other side. 

"My resolve and determination hasn’t wavered one little bit. I love a fight, I love a scrape, I love being in the middle of a storm when everyone has doubts. I know what it is on the other side if you get through it. My job is to get through it."

But there is also speculation that he may not get that chance, if Daniel Levy does what most chairmen usually do when fans start protesting against club ownership - they sack the manager.

Levy has hired and fired plenty of big names since taking over Tottenham 23 years ago, including Glenn Hoddle, Harry Redknapp, Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, whose infamous rant after Tottenham’s last visit to Southampton, in March 2023 was his final act before being dismissed.

Conte complained that the club had no culture of winning, nor a real desire to win trophies, and that chimes with Levy’s many critics among the Tottenham fanbase, who believe the problem lies at the top of the organisation.

Levy, they argue, is interested mainly in making the club a success off the pitch, and his focus on building a world-class stadium and training facilities, rather than invest at the same level as Tottenham’s rivals, hampers sporting success.

Certainly, they have not spent anything like Chelsea, Manchester City, United or Liverpool, who have all won the biggest prizes over the past two decades. 

Even Arsenal, who have not won a league title for 20 years, have traditionally spent more on wages and transfers than Spurs, who have won just one trophy in the Levy era - the League Cup in 2008. 

Pochettino took Tottenham to the runners-up spot in both the Premier and Champions Leagues, but complained about a lack of investment to go that one step further. It has been a familiar refrain from managers dating back to Redknapp, who once asked for Carlos Tevez and Gary Cahill, and was instead presented with Ryan Nelson and a past-his-prime Louis Saha.

Postecoglou was brought in by Levy nearly 18 months ago with a remit to change the culture of a club that had lost its way, and a few days later found the chairman had sold Harry Kane to Bayern Munich on the eve of the season, without lining up a replacement.

So Postecoglou has had to make do and mend from the start and managed a superb opening period of eight wins in his first 10 games before the wheels came off last November, with a home defeat by Chelsea that was uncannily like last weekend’s 4-3 win for the Blues at Tottenham.

Fans were quick to call for his head on radio phone-ins and online, and while it must be said the keyboard warriors are not representative of genuine, match-going fans, plenty of the latter want a change of manager.

But what is the alternative? Find another manager who can achieve more with a squad that is decent but not packed with world-class talent? The bookies’ favourites include Graham Potter, who failed at Chelsea, Erik ten Hag, who failed at Manchester United and Brendan Rodgers, who failed to win anything with Liverpool. 

Would they win anything at Spurs?

And would the quality of football be better or worse? Postecoglou’s team has won 3-0 at Manchester United, 4-0 at City and thrashed Aston Villa, West Ham and Everton by four goals at home. They are clearly capable of greater things if he can iron out inconsistencies that have led to defeats by Ipswich, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth.

That is why it is such a big week for Spurs. Southampton will be an acid test for whether they can overcome the strugglers as well as the title contenders, and then they face Manchester United in a home Carabao Cup quarter-final, followed by league-leaders Liverpool next Sunday.

As Postecoglou says, win those three and they are well set for the rest of the festive period and their season starts to look very different.

But if they lose one, two or all three of their games, it is hard to see Levy maintaining his current level of support for Postecoglou, who always warned it would take time to turn around the trophy-less oil-tanker that is Tottenham.

Success does not come quickly, and it does not come cheaply in English football. 

Postecoglou proudly boasts that he always wins a trophy in his second season at a club. We will never know whether he could have done it at Tottenham if he is sacked now. 

But if he is backed now, with money to bolster his options in January, then he has a chance to prove his critics wrong.