Is Postecoglou on the right track at Spurs?

Tottenham Hotspur have 12 games left in the Premier League, could they have a chance at Champions League football with a top four finish?

Spurs sit fifth, just behind Aston Villa, with questions if they could be even higher in the league table had their season not been hampered by injury.

How does Ange Postecoglou’s start as Spurs head coach in the Premier League compare with the likes of Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta?

Ayo Akinwolere is joined by The Athletic’s Tottenham correspondent Jack Pitt-Brooke and German football writer Seb Stafford-Bloor to discuss.

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00:00 Intro
00:30 How is Postecoglou doing so far at Tottenham?
05:00 How have Spurs improved?
07:03 What problems have they overcome?
11:09 What is Ange building?
13:34 Tottenham Hotspur players
15:55 Podcast habits survey
16:22 What does next season look like for Spurs?
26:33 Ange Postecoglou’s brand of football
29:44 A Liverpool without Klopp
33:36 The future of Spurs
36:35 Outro

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#tottenham #thfc #premierleague

With us today we have the Athletics Tottenham correspondent Jack Pitts Brook and also German Football writer Seb Stafford blur and also Seb welcome first time I’ve seen you in the flesh so good to have you in with us thanks for having me are you all right let’s let’s talk an

POA cogo because Spurs writer Charlie eel has written a really good piece actually available to read on the athletic today comparing Angie’s first 26 games to that of arteta and also um Jurgen klopp at Liverpool now if we look at the points talles in particular and’s team has actually tallied more than the

Other two I mean that’s quite encouraging at this moment in time isn’t it Jack you reckon yeah it’s really encouraging I think what that what that piece makes very clear is that people kind of memory hole how long it took for both klopp’s Liverpool and alas Arsenal

To actually get good um and because they’re so good now we assume that it was almost kind of overnight but in fact it took L years like literally years and years and windows and money to get to that point now it’s impossible to predict at right now how good anes

Tottenham are going to be but we can see by the fact that they are outperforming those two teams at an equivalent stage that they are on a really good track at the moment and so if they I guess the question is can they can they do the things that Liverpool and Arsenal did

Which allow them to continue to grow and improve and actually get to that sort of top level of competitiveness yeah um in terms of points let me just read them out an after 26 games 50 points klopp 43 artetta 42 Seb should we be a bit more

Realistic though um in terms of the different factors in which you know the managers came into the club you know I I think an has technically had a preseason and you know going into a full season the other two came halfway through the season but also I think we were saying

Just before miketa that’s his first managerial um position really obviously under Pep Guardiola who’s a the guru but should those be taken into consideration yeah I think they have to be because anytime you have a preseason you at least in theory have the chance to design the squad around what you want um

And clearly poly had that opportunity perhaps it didn’t go quite as far as a lot of supporters wanted it to in terms of equipping the squad with depth but look at the investment that was made over the summer Mickey vanen to me is the big one um who I just think is a

Phenomenal Center half in the making I remember watching him in Germany and thinking it’s going to be a bit of a liability for few years he’s well exceeded my expectations um but then you see kind of James Madison coming in and Madison seems to be so fundamental to

The kind of football that posa cogle wants to play in the final third not necessarily the buildup but kind of The Cutting angles the use of the kind of the wide forwards um that it’s a luxury to have those players and and sort of also you have the opportunity to L A few

Other seeds you have the opportunity to go away and go on tour to develop a little bit of a social connection whereas I suppose if you come in halfway through a season you here is a group of players who are disaffected with the previous manager so um Liverpool brenon

Brenon Rogers um and a lot of the kind of the initial weeks in the first season is about sort of I don’t know like each group working towards each other and you don’t have to do that midseason in poog’s case so there is a difference and

I I I do think there’s an asteris there but I I remember reading Charlie’s article and I was quite surprised um and I still think it’s a really significant achievement because I think a lot of people because the turnaround has been so quick a lot of people have forgotten

How bad it was at Spurs last season and how how joyless it was how creatively uh what’s the word anemic I would say toxic really but as a fan also as a fan who lives abroad I don’t think I’d ever felt further away from the football team so

For for postic to come in and cure those things as well as make the team better I feel is um that’s that’s an asterisk on the other side if that makes sense yeah I guess Jack you know should we look at that in terms of where the club was

Before he came in right like the fan basee weren’t that happy with previous management and I guess his job really was sort of just to stabilize it for the time being but actually he’s done more than that yeah exactly like I think the main the main job that I think POA cogu

Had to do this season was to bring all the disparate parts of the football club back together so what we saw last year was huge amounts of friction between the management the fan base the football club and the and the players and so an’s really sh sorry let me start that again

And what an has done is he shown that if you have a popular charismatic manager with a clear set of ideas then all those different parts of the club can come together behind that manager that was really the main job that he had for this season I think that’s really the main

Reason they specifically brought him in because they knew that he could drive that kind of cultural change he could he could transform the ethos of the football club and so that’s he’s already ticked that box really and I think what they’ve done on the pitch which has been

Very impressive that was always not so much like I don’t want to say it was it wasn’t a priority this season because of course it is but it was I I think fundamentally what he’s going to be judged on is that kind of ethos cultural

Stuff and he’s and he’s done so well on that on that case already and I think the football is already exceeding expectations I I honestly think that’s the the vital ingredient uh as as Jack hit nail and the head as a fan I don’t care so much about whether they end up

Winning the Premier League or fa cups or qualifying for the Champions League what matters to me is that I can grasp an idea a central idea at the club and a journey that we’re all heading on where the club is getting better things are evolving pieces are being put around the

Manager that’s what I want the idea that there’s a long-term strategy there’s something for me to believe in I think that goes right to the core of fandom in football because a lot of people know at the beginning of their football fan life that they’re never going to win anything

Thing they’re never going to have that ultimate moment right so if you don’t have that you need to have aspiration and that’s kind of what Pago’s brought like this is someone that is very optimistic even um when you hear him speak yes but also uh his his brand of

Football is you know very optimistic and some people say probably you know to a fault but that’s what I want as a fan the idea that we are heading somewhere I don’t know where it’s going to be but we’re heading somewhere do you agree with that Jack in terms of you know if

He does get Champions League football this season that’d be amazing amazing right and I know in terms of building something that that makes a lot of sense but I mean what fan doesn’t want to be traveling to Real Madrid next season yeah I mean of course every fans want

The team to do as well as possible but I think what why I agree with Seb is what sets this season apart from the last few is that the success on the pitch is kind of Downstream from the overall sense of strategy at the club whereas the problem

That they’ had for really the last 5 years since they sat poino in 2019 is this idea that they could basically cut kind of cut out the idea of having a strategy or rather sorry the strategy basically the last five years was we’ll get a famous manager in and

That famous manager has won stuff before and his kind of winning will rub off on us and we be good instantly and that’s what they tried with Mourinho and it failed and they tried it with Conte and it also failed um and this year they’ve kind of they’ve realized they had things

In the wrong order but they’ve got the order correct again now you start with the ethos and then the football hope the success on the pitch will hopefully come after that um so of course fans want the team to do well and I think the team

Probably will do well in the medium term but it’s about understanding kind of fundamentally what makes a team succeed and it’s and it’s not just about having a famous manager yeah I just want to pick up on something you wrote about um Jack in terms of

Um something that could be seen as a as a factor in halting spurs’ progress is this idea that you know Spurs are conceding a fair bit um under Posta cogo this sort of front foot football does come with its dangers as well but Al also caveat that and we spoke about this

You know not long ago when we were speaking about um teams that have given Manchester City a game Spurs went to Manchester City scored three goals with Roy all and Davis a center back so you know he’s adaptable as well yeah so B basically tottenham’s this was a piece I

Did last week looking at how high tottenham’s expected goals against is this season and it’s really high you know it’s more than it’s I think it was kind of 1.74 a game it’s probably come down a little bit since I wrote that but that’s kind of more just under double

What it was in the peak years of pochettino so clearly the team is it’s not a perfect team yet and it’s a team which has got some flaws but what I was what I’m really interested in having when I wrote this piece was the question of to what extent is this defensive

Frailty is this kind of inherent within ANB is this a feature of an ball or is it just a bug is it just a temporary issue caused by the massive injury crisis that they suffered in November and actually the more I think about it the more I think it’s not like an

Inherent problem with his strategy it’s more that if you’re going to play this way you really need all of your best players to be available and I think he’s asked so much them this season that at times they have the players he had available to him haven’t quite been able

To execute the plans when you dug into it Jack did you find like a lot of individual mistakes at the kind of the heart of some of those those concessions the most interesting thing I found is that set piece set piece has play a huge role in this like Tottenham are I think

They were the fourth worst in the league on set piece expected goals against but really that that kind of sits slightly separately from open play and you think it’s the kind of thing that again it’s not really inherent to the style of play it’s a kind of thing that ideally You’

Imagine they could kind of Coach to be better at so and I do think also individual mistakes play a role as well um and if but if you look at the numbers from say the first 10 games of the season when obviously they won eight drew two started the season really

Really well and again had Romero and vanen Blan together at Center back for those games the defensive numbers are pretty good they weren’t as good as City and Arsenal but they were I think kind of sixth best on expected goals against at that point and in the last few weeks

Since they’ve had Romero and vanen back together again the the numbers have been good like I mean Palace Palace against Tottenham on Saturday afternoon had the lowest expected goals of any team who’s played against Tottenham this season and I I mean I know they they scored a goal

With A’s brilliant free kick but that was kind of came out of nowhere but if but to me that suggests that it is possible for Tottenham to achieve good defensive numbers playing this way but clearly they need all their best players available and they need to be playing at a high level mhm

From your perspective s do you think that and I think you guys are both alluded to it it’s that this feels like a long-term project this doesn’t feel like a situation where if he doesn’t get Champions League football you’re out the door mate because actually what he seems to be

Building is stronger than you know potentially winning something but not just that it’s very rare to get someone that connects the fans and a management and the board together yeah but also to improve individual players so dramatically like if you go around the Tottenham team or Squad as a whole you

Look at sort of expectations back in probably June July with a group of players that were pretty much in in place a lot of people would have said I think I said 7th eth you know with that group would be a pretty decent return as long as we play some pretty football but

Then you look at the evolution and people like Pap SAR is the one who I think is I I’ve loved watching him I think he’s fantastic um E basuma before Christmas and before suspensions and um before he went off to afcon um Mickey vanen we’ve talked about I think um

Romero has not sure what the right way to characterize it but has grown up a little bit and has has has kind of developed into a really really Top Class Defender but Pedro porro Destiny doggy like everywhere you go there is an improvement ralison for instance people

A lot of people gave up on ralison I think um probably by about September October we you know and there seems to be this ability where he can cope with that and he can move players on either to a kind of a sorry for for using the phrase better moment as Football oppent

Goes now but also to a point where like you can see a point in the future where the team as a whole is growing organically which is really what you want is a kind of a little bit of a coolback to pochettino and so I suppose

That ties the bow quite neatly on Jack’s point about ethos around the team and that it’s not just about get the famous guy in Hope for the jolt hope that this this kind of magical Mourinho con quality turns your players who are semi-finalist into finalists and winners

And that’s the strategy now there seems to be a something a little bit more coherent some of those individual improvements are almost unbelievable this season how many Spurs fans would have said at the start of the Season that s would be I think arguably that I think I mean you can argue whether

Madison or SAR is more important but they are tottenham’s two most important midfielders they’re the two guys they cannot cope without in the middle of the pitch how many people would have said that s would be that that that integral to the team s is now miles ahead of

Hyberg in the pecking order skip in the pecking order who many people thought was the future tottenham’s Midfield and is now you know a very able replacement but he’s not a first a first pick player porro is someone who when they signed him lots of people probably me included

Were saying when he played as a wing back at sport at sporting he can’t play in a back four I think I said that on a podcast at some point the one the one game he played in the back four last um last season remember was was at Newcastle United where stellini just

Decided to change the system they lost they put in one of the worst performances ever seen and until this season Sheffield United team they lost 6-1 and then stellini was sacked that evening um and nobody thought that por could defend everybody You’ say a parro good going forward only as a wing back

Can’t defend in a four now this season he’s learned to play a completely new position basically it’s this right back in a four who inverts into Midfield he’s created tons of chances for Tottenham he’s played almost literally every minute until the other week where he finally missed a game he’s been he’s

Been brilliant in his Improvement Romero Seb says I think Romero has been transformed by being handed the vice captaincy people you know you hear a lot about how much more grown up he is how he much more kind of buys into the te ethic you can see that in his discipline

As well he’s got that he got that red card in the Chelsea game in November for a stupid tackle but generally speaking I think he’s been better he’s been he hasn’t made so many mistakes and again with Charlton as well like you said like he’s he’s got he’s got 10 leag goals

This season so far he’s been on fantastic run in the last few months and you know people might say well theyve paid 50 million quid for him in the first place you’d expect that but the fact is up until this this goal scoring run started he barely scored for

Tottenham you know people liked him as a character but he just wasn’t really delivering go with with goals I think it’s it’s it’s quite something to rescue a player from not just bad like period of form but what was apparently quite a bad personal moment in his life so there

Are managers in the game today all over the game Who when you have that not my problem bring somebody in who’s going to play well uh and you you go and sort that out on your own time I feel like POA kogu took a bit of an ownership of

The charlatan situation and it really is a feather in his cap to be able to turn something a situation like that into such a positive because without his goals and actually I I’m going to go down the Sado rout um from about 10 years ago but without his work rate and

Contribution I suppose would be in a very difficult a very different place now I think well before we move on quick Public Announcement we’re asking you to fill out a quick survey about you and your podcast Habits by going to theathletic.com survey4 three lucky entries will win100

Or $100 worth of Amazon vouchers as well so whether you’re a longtime listener or a new one we want your feedback I’m so interested from your perspective what next season looks like let’s say Spurs do get that top VI spot and based on how things work out in the

European European leagues they do get a Champions League spot next season what does that then look like for Spurs is it just to exist in these spaces and keep building or is there to a certain expectation an idea that we can go ahead and try and win something this

Year yeah that it’s a really good question and I don’t really know what the Strategic priorities will be um obviously it’s very difficult to plan to win a cup competition I mean spur this is something that Spurs have struggled with a lot over the years as people as

Everyone knows is that you can be a really good team and not win a cup um because Cups have riing so much on Randomness and you perform at the right times and obviously even under you know under under potina Tottenham were unbelievably good and they what they

Lost one League Cup Final one Champions League final they screwed up two FA Cup semi-finals along the way so I think it’s very difficult to build around the idea of trying to win a trophy what I what I think I’m more interested in is how how much better can they get in the

Premier League let’s say they’ll finish with they’ll probably finish with the points total in around sort of 70 maybe 75 this season which is fantastic that’s going to be their best season for five years what I wonder is can they go and be a kind of 80 plus Point team and what

Would they need to do to be able to achieve that I think if there’s a cloud on the horizon it’s that obviously there are there are areas in which the squad can be improved I think that’s still a really good group of players like clearly a little bit of

Depth is needed in certain positions and a slightly different type of Center forward and you know a couple of wide forwards in there that these are things which can move the need a little bit but you wonder whether Spurs have the resources to make the kind of signings

That we we we started by talking about our tetran club now clearly both fantastic coaching jobs and um Testament to their managerial abilities but nourished also by Massive spending at really important moment so klopp wins a champions league and a premier league title because they’re in a position to

Sign Virgil Van djk and Allison so like Premier players in their positions in the world now conspir I suppose that’s where the the glass ceiling is or the hump or whatever you want to describe it that’s that’s the Difference Maker in modern football that kind of expenditure

So I it’s really hard to to tell I’m enjoying watching it grow but I don’t know don’t really get sense for where it’s going but this is why I’m interested in terms of what profile of player Spurs being bring in then um over the summer because obviously this is

Still a rebuilding project let’s not forget that he’s only dad one full season but you know let’s say look at the caribo Cup Final van dijk scores the goal for for Liverpool a Chelsea team lacking real experience at that time at that type of tournament or that stage in

A tournament those kind of decisions and who you bring in will make a massive difference as to where you do end up at the end of the season 100% And I think it’s going to be I imagine it will have to be more of a kind of a hybrid approach so Spurs are

Economically in a situation where they should be prioritizing a Lucas bergal for instance and investing his future as they have done with Destiny dogy who’s I I can’t wait to see what kind of player he becomes he’s just already an exellent one perhaps we’ve talked about and so

You have to kind of you have to fuel both sides of it so you have to make sure you’re bringing in a James Madison and also ensuring that because you’re at a little bit of a financial not a little bit a big Financial dis advantage to Manchester City Paris sgain etc etc um

You have to have players before they become unavailable to you uh and so that’s a very difficult balance to find but if for a club like Spurs the only way to succeed in the kind of material trophy sense is to now both sides of that Approach at the same time and be

Absolutely perfect and it’s that’s tricky I think what I’d add to that as well is that I think the landscape is changing in tottenham’s favor because of uh Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules like we because to because of tottenham’s I was going to say unique model but because of

Tottenham’s distinctive model which is that they have the stadium which produces let’s say5 million per home game for them um this this puts them in such a strong financial position and also they’ve had you know they they’ve controlled their wage Bill very well over the years relative to their revenue

This puts them in a much stronger position with PSR than lots of their Rivals and we saw this in the January window where Tottenham were able to go and get dragas in from Janu for 25 million while lots of their Premier League Rivals were unable to do any

Business now there’s no reason to supect that that’s going to change because the Tottenham stadium is going to continue to bring in that money the Tottenham wage bill is going to remain relatively low Tottenham have quite a lot of heading with PSR the other teams don’t

And so I think that even though in the past Tottenham have been financially outm mused on big on big significant players I mean I’m not expecting Tottenham to go and you know to be part of the conversation for mbappe or who whoever the next mbappe calm down Jack or who

Whoever the next kind of mbappe Bellingham type player is going to be in sort of 3 to 5 years time from now but I am expecting Tottenham to be able to throw their weight around a little bit more with with very very good players because they’ve got that space to expand

Into and lots of other Premier League teams are looking are looking at their accounts thinking can we afford him or if we can afford him are we going to have to sell player X player Y and player Zed I feel like I really like PSR

In in the sense that from a purely like biased Tottenham perspective what fans have been sold for a very long time is sustainability for the sake of a brighter tomorrow like we’re going to live conservatively so that we can afford to do these things um we’re

Building a stadium so that we can we can have the we can go to the sunlet Uplands of you know big transfer spending and it’s good because like over those really two decades what what you’ve seen is like benefactor clubs Leap Frog Spurs because someone’s come in and they’re

Willing to foot the bill for um players or resources which would otherwise be beyond the club’s means and so if there’s a I I’m not trying to point and laugh at clubs who are sort of suffering as a result of this but if you live within your means for Club at Spurs you

Should have this opportunity that is the way it should work and it’s it’s kind of an alleviation of what has been a very long-standing frustration and um that’s my fan hat not a journalist hat on it’s just that’s that’s generally just how I feel about it it’s h it feels fairer I’m

I’m really interested in another um factor that um Charlie wrote about um I think the piece went out in February on POA cogo’s approach when it comes to hiring as well cuz I think that’s going to be quite really fascinating factor in terms of this idea even look at the

January Tim O Vera dragan um and that he actually has a real connection with the people he’s trying to bring into the club um Charlie talks about the fact that he you know he spoke to these players over the phone and he really convinced them of of what he

Wanted from them within the team structure but also how he sees them fitting into this whole ethos and his approach how important is that going to be over the the the summer periods when you’re looking at these signings that you might want to poach away from the

Likes of Barcelona or whatever I think it’s really important so I think fundamentally players want to players want to feel wanted they want to feel like they have a chance to to belong and also to grow in an environment and you can see this by the number of players

Who’ve specifically chosen to come to Tottenham so over the last so last summer for example Newcastle United were very interested in James Madison Newcastle obviously in the Champions League this season Tottenham not not in any European competition at all but he ended up at Tottenham you know um Dragon

Famously in the January transfer window had a much better Financial offer to go to buay Munich you know B if he’ gone to Bayern Munich again he would have been he might not have been First Choice to play but I mean he hasn’t started a game

For Tottenham so far so that would have been on his mind and yet even though he had this fantastic Financial offer from Bay he chose to come to Tottenham um bergal who they’ve just signed from du Gardens in in Sweden Barcelona had not I believe Barcelona gave him the

Full tour of the new camp and again you might have expected that a few years ago a young player from from a uh from a league in Europe would be desperate to go to Barcelona conversation with there a couple years ago and now he he’s going

To Tottenham so I do think Tottenham are increasingly popular and I do know that well I don’t know what conversations took place between bergal and Tottenham I do know in the case of drasin he had what two conversations on the phone with with poster cogu while he was trying to

Make up his mind and it went down to the you know it was a very late run thing I think it was only at 3:00 a.m. on 3:00 a.m. the morning before he decided that they finally got the call saying that Jenner and Tottenham had done a deal so

He could in fact go to Tottenham but that emotional connection does really matter and players do want to come and play for him do you think paklu gets the same respect as potentially the likes of Yogen klopp or the likes of uh Mikel artetta you know you’ve got the

Guardiola connection guy that came from the you know the Australian league and then obviously did great stuff at at Celtic frankly no uh don’t think so I mean uh in klopp’s case you had not just a a Bundesliga winner in a Champions League finalist but you had a

Essentially a high priest of the game um someone associated with a very distinct tactical Style with with someone like artetta you know I have a really really excellent playing career but you have this sort of Halo patronage with Pep Guardiola like by being in pep guardiola’s presidence the assumption is

You become a Guardiola in your own right eventually whether that’s true or not I don’t know but um art Tetra is clearly off to a very strong start whereas I think in a way the attitude towards POS kogu describes the Public’s attitude towards modern football where our focus

Is all on a single narrow area which is the Premier League um with an almost well well yeah with a disregard for anything achieved elsewhere so he wins in Japan so what don’t care about Japanese football he wins in in Scotland yeah but with Celtic like no one seems

To Beyond very few people seems to want to dig down into kind of what went well like um if you talk to my good friend John McKenzie TFO raved about an pole before he’d um before toam was even a possibility talked about kind of the Innovations his tactical style and the

The brand of football that he was teaching and I don’t think we we think of the game in that way very often I think it’s trophies sound bites personality and that’s really it um and that maybe that that’s fine because football’s entertainment and you know not everybody is a football journalist

Right so you don’t have time to kind of watch Japanese football every every weekend but um no and I don’t think so it requires to to gain that respect I think you do have to win in a major league in in in the Premier League or or

Something or an equivalent um and he’s yet to do that until that point he’s a kind of an interesting tactical figure and a like a really likable human being but then um you know the public at large will will always um favor someone who’s W and a more obvious environment yeah I

Mean is that is that enough being a likable human being if inevitably you’re not winning the trophies you know that’s that’s what you’re judged on especially in the Premier League you know people want to see that this incredible brand of football that you’ve built slightly dangerous let’s not forget is actually a

Bit of Madness that’s bringing some into the game that we’ve never seen before if he doesn’t win trophies surely that would be counted against him no I don’t think so just because no no Tottenham manager has won has won trophy since W Ramos and that didn’t save him so I

Think Tottenham I think look if they continue to improve I think there will come a point in let’s say two or three years time where people say isn’t it time you wanton a trophy an as with the Poo exactly yeah but for now I think he’s still in he’s still in a place

Where he’s going to get judged on firstly the the kind of ethos cultural improvements we talked about earlier and secondly the sense that the team is improving on the pitch but right now I think he’s he’s ticking both of those boxes so I think the trophy discussion

Is kind of for another day it’s interesting isn’t it CU I’ve always thought the trophy discussion is a bit more of a social media chat than a kind of a football World conversation like pochettino did great things at Spurs didn’t win a trophy didn’t stop getting didn’t stop him getting the Paris sgain

Job or or getting appointed by Chelsea I think it’s a little bit of an illusion I think people inside the game are pretty good generally speaking applying context to managerial performance and at the moment that’s that’s where pastu is I don’t the trophy thing seems to kind of

I’d like it but you know it’s it’s 16 years so it doesn’t it’s not at the Forefront of my mind let’s move on um joggen klopp um is leaving the Premier League at the end of the season and Guardiola still yet to be known whether he’s going to sign another extension uh

To his Manchester City deal at this moment in time there are a few teams knocking on that door um to try and break into that top three or potentially challenge for the Premier League Aston Villa been one of them and can we put Spurs in that category as

Well um I think yeah I mean I think it’s very difficult to know what next season’s going to look like in the Premier League right because a clock plus Liverpool I mean who knows I mean it could be a situation where they’ve got this momentum from this season the

Young players and they just ride that positivity through or it could be very very difficult for them you know because of the the kind of the sense of a cown the the sense of not having the man who everything’s gared around so it’s almost impossible to guess and even even with

City like I don’t I just don’t know what guardiola’s going to do there’s still a small part of me that wouldn’t be surprised if particularly if City go on to win a lot this season as I think they might well he stays on no that he think

That he might go oh interesting this is I mean this is this is just a pure hunch on my part but I do wonder if they do if they win a lot then I wonder if Guardiola might think he wants to go and play golf with klopp next season he

Going to ask what do you think’s next for Guardiola like if he do that it’s very hard to know what job he could go to because I feel like this has been a job that has been kind of built around him it’s been kind of tailor made for

Him so I I just don’t know what pep would do next but I in terms of how Spurs could do in this new environment well I mean I think they I think they would need more play I mean it would still for them to challenge for the

League next season would be a hugely accelerated plan I think again going back to to Charlie’s excellent article you know klopp klopp took over Liverpool in October 2015 yeah they became this close to winning the Premier League in 1819 but they didn’t win the league until 1920 Arsenal sorry artet took over

Arsenal in what December 2019 again they came very close to win the league in 2022 sorry in 2023 but they didn’t and now they’re in the mix to try and win it in 23 24 we don’t know how that’s going to play out yet so the time between a

Manager taking over and then actually winning the league like that’s a that is a even if you’re a brilliant manager with a lot of backing it takes a long time yeah you know I’m going to pick up from what what Jack just said um in terms of Spurs and we let’s take Arsenal

For instance you know in this respect they’ve only just started feeling okay and feeling okay with dealing with the pressure of being the team to beat do you think this Spurs team are ready to deal with that pressure if they’re going to gun for you know number one number

Two spot of being the team to be no I don’t think so I I think a lot of these players are yet to go through that situation I think obviously Arsenal will be tremend tremendously disappointed with what happened last year but it did them good I think um lessons have been learned for

Spurs I think I think if you compare Arsenal and Tottenham directly a lot of it comes down to you know cohesion in the attacking third like Arsenal look very very well oiled at the moment they they they’re very slick they’re they’re kind of the horizontal movement of the

Ball is really impressive hate to say it but it is um and I think that’s partly you know a a function of like coaching performance it’s also made good investment in key areas so like they they have a situation where obviously you got young players developing at a

Pace Bai Saka has become a wonderful worldclass player clearly Martinelli is lethal in in certain situations but they’ve also added players who are truly impactful Trad is one who when they signed him I thought don’t know about that you you heard noises about trossard that made you think going know sidestep

That a little bit um and yet they have this variation which allows them because they face Low Blocks on a on a regular basis to kind of pick their way through Spurs are still kind of coming up against some of those challenges for the first time some of these these players

Individually and the squad isn’t quite equipped to show enough or or to create enough problems for those sides and um so I don’t think it’s even at a stage where it’s a question of emotional resilience I think it’s a kind of a tactical variation issue but then that’s

Part of the process right like everybody’s in this for the long term and you’ve got to you’ve got to allow these things to play out like arteta’s arteta’s second season was no good really like long periods of really poor form and it’s about it’s about growing and allowing yourself to grow through

That kind of adversity spur yet to do that yeah Jack we’ve talk about the future and this is predominant what this section of the Pod is really about Personnel a key you not just players but behind the scenes as well I see Johan langers coming into Spurs um

How important do you think those appointments are going to be if if we’re talking about in terms of recruitment particularly I mean so so important to be able to pick those right players not just that but also having a club structure as we’ve seen with the likes

Of Arsenal as we’ve seen with other teams even brighten to a certain degree um to be able to propel that team forward with a clear idea and a clear ethos yeah I actually think recruitment teams might be slightly overrated in the sense that Tottenham had a brilliant summer um you know Vicario incredible

Signing frankly not a lot of people had heard of him he comes in from emple and he he manages to square the circle of being a fantastic shot stoer and also really good with his Feats he can play an ball vanderen fantastic like again integral to playing an ball Madison you

Know not not a surprise to anyone really he’s watched the Premier League over the last five years I was a bit surprised but he’s come in and done really really well he’s he’s a much better player than I thought he was yeah so those three were really good Spurs didn’t have a

Recruitment team in the summer the recruitment the the recruitment team such as it was was Fabio partii no longer a Tottenham employee who’d been banned from football but was in allowed to work work we should we have to say in this particular role as a kind of ad hoc

Consultant you know Johan Langer didn’t come in until October so they had paraty um helping out let’s say on recruitment in the summer and they would did it fantastically and that makes me think do you actually need a recruitment team or can you just have one guy with a

Big contact book and a good eye for a player who working closely with the chairman and the manager and you sign some some really good players so I I I don’t know how it’s going to go in the future with with Yan Langer and his team

I’m no reason to think that they won’t be good at their jobs but I I think if you just got somebody who can pick the right players then maybe we over complicate things a bit do do you think we we’re kind of a little bit enamored

With Guru culture like the idea of this kind of almost Sous saying technical director who can just pick players out of nowhere is in reality when I moved to Germany I found out that like unlike England you can kind of develop relationships with people in those positions they’re a little bit more open

And talking to journalists and invariably the people that are good at their jobs they’re just really good communicators and they understand understand how to work processes that it’s not like I can spot the next Ronaldinho on a park pitch it’s not that and I think we’ve kind of gone a bit far

Down the down that path when we we start talking about kind of like you sign a technical director and we sort of portray it as being kind of transformative in a way that very rarely is there aren’t many examples of that happening or at least not when there

Aren’t other pieces in place to to kind of square the circle okay let’s end it there and I got to say good news for Spurs uh manager of the year Well London manager of the year and POA kogo at the London football awards and goalkeeper of

The Year Vicario as well so well done maybe a sign of things to come jents thanks so much for your time Jack and Seb don’t forget to rate and review the podcast and we’ll be back with another episode tomorrow thank you so much for listening