The hope that kills: A defence of Ange Postecoglou
“Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” Morgan Freeman warns during a poignant scene in the Shawshank Redemption.
Supporting Tottenham is a bit like that, after Sunday’s painful north London derby defeat. It brings our great rivals, Arsenal, closer to the promised land and stalls our own rehabilitation.
However, what followed on social media was akin to Spurs supporters swimming in the proverbial shit whilst under the influence of five pints of Neck Oil.
It certainly didn’t help your sudden urge to beat your Arsenal supporting friends and relatives with your smartphone.
Perhaps that would have prevented you from consuming every outlet’s analysis of those VAR and Michael Oliver decisions to the point of imagining throwing them off the skywalk.
Perhaps that would have prevented you from reading those comments about sacking the manager and starting again.
Stop. Now that you’re sober, take a step back.
Ange Postecoglou had a mountain to climb at the beginning of the season. A squad to reshape and a new philosophy to instill with no Harry Kane.
For the most part Postecoglou has excelled. In the face of click-bait preseason predictions and condescending comments about his career, Spurs went undefeated in their first ten games.
There was hope that the rebuild that we had harped on about for four years, may not be so painful.
Perhaps we could exceed the aim of getting ourselves back into Europe. Spurs fans could dream again.
However, there is that fear of reality coming to slap you in the face. It came in the form of a spectacular loss to Chelsea in November, under a cloud of injuries and red cards.
Suspensions and international competitions also hindered the squad in those winter months. But to his credit Postecoglou got the team through it by reinforcing his attacking style without tumbling down the league, as predicted by many.
A mixture of results followed. Enough wins to keep us in contention for the Champions League but some awful defeats that really exposed the frailties of Postecoglou’s tactics when the players available couldn’t perform them.
There was a hope that once everyone was fit, Spurs would return to the form they showed in those early months.
The 4-0 win at Villa in March should have set us on course to finish the season strongly. However, returning players still out of form have hampered that charge. Also, a complete inability to deal with set pieces has continually cost us games like the north London derby.
I believe that these flaws will be fixed in time. After all, Postecoglou hasn’t had the career he has had by being unaware or incompetent.
With hope, Spurs will finish the season strongly with Europa League qualification and then it’s up to the board to back Postecoglou in the summer.
That hope does sound like insanity when you consider Daniel Levy’s charge sheet.
Despite enjoying a period of unity, the board recently infuriated the supporters by hiking ticket prices and removing concession seats.
As a result, keeping a club united when the board is unpopular with a fan base with high expectations, is a difficult task.
But then Postecoglou is not a superhero.
Despite his early season achievements, it was unrealistic to have expectations of fixing every problem at the club after our mid-season struggles.
It would also be foolish – as a minority suggest – to abandon his tenure at the first sign of difficulty.
Historically, the club has always chosen quick fixes, wandering from one type of manager to another without having the patience or guts to crawl through the sewer when results weren’t going our way.
On Thursday, we travel to Chelsea with the hope of avenging that damaging defeat in November. History shows that fate has not been kind to us at Stamford Bridge regardless of the state of the home team.
Nonetheless, Spurs supporters must trust that we are on the right path despite the inevitable bumps in the road.
