Is Postecoglou any closer to ending Tottenham’s wait for a trophy

LONDON — We are 11 games into the Premier League season, and it is still impossible to gauge the merit of Tottenham Hotspur.

Are they the side that orchestrated a 3-0 dismantling of Manchester United at Old Trafford, a 4-1 triumph over high-flying Aston Villa and knocked Manchester City out of the Carabao Cup? Or are they the unit that contrived to lose 3-2 to Brighton & Hove Albion after being 2-0 up, and gave Crystal Palace and Ipswich Town their first — and so far only — wins of the season?

The simple, if frustrating, answer is that Spurs are both: capable of reaching soaring highs or crushing lows on any given day. And while the underlying numbers suggest that more of the former should be on the horizon, it’s this inconsistency that is the biggest threat to manager Ange Postecoglou’s unbroken career record of delivering silverware in his second year.

The two sides of Spurs

There is probably no better fixture to speak to Spurs’ Jekyll and Hyde-like nature than their trip to face Manchester City on Saturday. A fortnight ago, not many would have anticipated that Postecoglou’s side would fall to Ipswich at home but, at the same time, few would have been outright aghast at the concept. It just felt like the type of game that Spurs would drop.

Conversely, few will be anticipating that they will take something off Pep Guardiola’s men this weekend; but it also wouldn’t be completely shocking if they returned to London with all three points. Spurs have become something of a bogey side for City in recent years, and it is well-known that Postecoglou relishes the opportunity to test himself against the best in games such as this.

Given the tight nature of this season’s Premier League, Tottenham enter the weekend sitting 10th, just three points back of third-placed Chelsea, but also just a point clear of 13th-placed Manchester United. Had they got the job done against Ipswich, they’d be sitting third and — as Postecoglou would likely be the first to wryly observe — the tone surrounding his side would likely be vastly different. But while the vibes in North London in the Australian’s sophomore season are a far cry from what they were like at this point a year ago, when they sat top of the Premier League after 10 weeks and suffered their first defeat on the season only on matchday 11, a look under the bonnet will suggest the foundation Spurs are working off this season is stronger.

It’s only a sample size of 11 games, but Spurs are scoring more goals and creating more expected goals (xG) per 90 than they did across 2023-24, as well as conceding fewer goals and allowing fewer xG conceded per 90. They’re taking more shots while allowing fewer at the other end, winning the ball higher up the pitch, and turning it over less in their defensive third. Their PPDA (passes per defensive action) — a metric that measures the intensity of a team’s press — is just 6.82, the lowest in the Premier League. In more tangible measurements, no team in the Premier League has scored more goals than Tottenham this season, and only league leaders Liverpool possess a better goal difference than their +10.

When they’re at their best, Spurs are very good, capable of blowing all but the most elite sides out of the water with a relentless attacking approach — something more in keeping with the club’s mythos than the defensive trappings of its three previous full-time coaches: Antonio Conte, Nuno Espírito Santo and José Mourinho. And it’s these flashes that will convince Postecoglou that he remains on the right track; the footballing philosophy that has painstakingly paved the way from his native Australia to the Premier League continuing to bear fruit. Probably somewhat importantly, unlike a couple of those previous coaches listed, he seems to actually enjoy being at Spurs’ helm, too.

“I’ve enjoyed every step of the way,” Postecoglou tells ESPN. “Every challenge has been different. Every club has had different sorts of environments and different kinds of cultural resets that I’ve had to do. But I’ve enjoyed all of it and I’m enjoying this as much as I’ve enjoyed everything else I’ve done in football.

“And hopefully that continues, because that’s what kind of keeps driving me. If I get to the point where I’m getting up in the morning and not looking forward to what’s ahead, then I know that it’s probably time for me to try and look to do something else. But I’m loving every minute of it.”

Nonetheless, for all the statistical positives that can be taken from Spurs’ start to the season, the numbers that suggest results should reliably improve, this is still a team that has lost as many games as it has won, and the gap between their highs and their lows this season has been stark.

Just once have they won back-to-back league games — against Brentford and Manchester United in September — and those results were followed by the loss at Brighton that Postecoglou labelled “the worst defeat we’ve had since I’ve been here.” Adept as they have proven at coming from behind to win games — Tottenham’s 10 comeback triumphs since the Australian’s arrival is the best record in the Premier League, alongside Manchester City — they’ve also shipped the first goal in five straight home games and 13 times overall at home this calendar year, four more times than next “best” West Ham United and just one back of the Premier League record of 14. It’s a level of inconsistency and sustained run of early deficits that aren’t sustainable for a side with Spurs’ ambitions.

“That’s down to me,” Postecoglou told media after the Ipswich defeat. “That’s my responsibility. The inconsistency we’re having this year, ultimately it comes down to me and my approach and it’s something I need to try and fix and see if I can help the players in that area.”

Sophomore silverware

Postecoglou will need to find immediate solutions to these issues but, in doing so, it can be safely assumed that they won’t clash with his long-term vision. In the days leading into the Ipswich loss, the coach spoke of establishing foundations for sustained success, a vision of prosperity stretching beyond the pursuit of a trophy or other short-term glories. And anyone familiar with his work will know he’s not one to bend on principles.

“I don’t see just a trophy as the panacea for sustained success because there is plenty of evidence that is not the case,” Postecoglou said. “Not here, just sport in general. I get the fact when you’re at a club this size and it hasn’t won, people think: ‘Well that is the missing piece.’

“What I have been trying to rail against since I’ve been here is there is never just a missing piece. It is always more than that. It’s about having a clear idea over what you’re going to build, how you’re going to build it, and staying true to that.”

But it’s here where one of the great contradictions of modern football comes to the fore. Because while Postecoglou is absolutely correct that he leaves foundations at clubs — Melbourne Victory, Brisbane Roar, Yokohama F Marinos and Celtic all won titles soon after his departure — trophies are generally a pretty good omen. And he arrived at Spurs with a reputation for winning them in his second season at clubs, something he defiantly reiterated after his side’s North London derby defeat earlier this season. And a fanbase coming up on two decades without a trophy– since the League Cup triumph over Chelsea in 2008 — tends to remember those types of things.

“I’ll correct myself — I don’t usually win things, I always win things in my second year,” he told Sky Sports after that derby defeat. “Nothing’s changed. I’ve said it now. I don’t say things unless I believe them.”

Fortunately for Spurs, while the 12-point gap to Liverpool is already looking pretty insurmountable, they are well placed in their cup competitions to win something. Especially given cups, generally, don’t tend to be as punishing on inconsistency as league play.

Despite Spurs’ recent defeat to Galatasaray breaking their 100% record, they sit seventh in the league phase of the UEFA Europa League after four games, well on track to advance to the round of 16 as a seeded side. Meanwhile, having already eliminated Manchester City from the Carabao Cup, they will host Manchester United in a quarterfinal next month, and will also enter the FA Cup in its third round in January along with the rest of the Premier League sides.

Clues from Postecoglou’s past

So is there anything Spurs fans can take from Postecoglou’s previous trophy-winning seasons as an omen? A sign that this campaign will continue the trend? There are no guarantees, but there are hints.

Interestingly enough, the start of Postecoglou’s second season at Spurs isn’t too dissimilar to the sophomore seasons he has experience at three of his previous clubs, with Celtic’s dominant 2022-23 campaign the outlier.

This season, Spurs sit on 16 points after 11 games, with five wins and a draw. In Postecoglou’s J1 League-winning campaign with Yokohama in 2019, he also had five wins at this stage but sat on 18 points thanks to a further three draws. At Brisbane Roar in 2010-11, he’d recorded six wins and four draws on his way to what would become an A-League Men premiership and championship double. In Postecoglou’s first coaching role, at South Melbourne, he started his second season in 1997-98 with five wins but — thanks to five draws and just one loss — had 20 points after 11 games, and an NSL premiership and championship double on the way.

“You never truly know, but I certainly got the sense that we were building something,” Postecoglou told ESPN, reflecting on his second-season successes. “I’ve never had a predetermined sort of outcome for that but I did feel [something] and you get that mainly from the playing group more than everything else — that they feel it.

“That’s when they start believing in it and driving it. You go: ‘Okay, we’ve got something here.’ And that’s the kind of thing you look for. There was certainly evidence of that in all the clubs… by the time I got to my second year, there was a real buy-in from everyone, players and staff.

“You never can never guarantee outcomes but all I have is 26 years of historical evidence that I know that when that clicks, then we give ourselves the opportunity of winning things.”

Of course, if we’re looking to history for clues, how Spurs perform in the immediate future will be telling; it was at about this point in his previous stints that things really began to click into gear for Postecoglou.

After the 11-match point in 2019, Yokohama would go on to win seven of their next 10 matches before ending the season on an 11-game unbeaten run. At the Roar in 2010-11 — a side so good they would be christened “Roar-celona” — six wins and four draws would come in their next 10 matches, contributing to what became a 36-game unbeaten run that still stands as an Australian record.

Postecoglou’s 1997-98 South Melbourne side, meanwhile, would win seven of their next 10, with their other defeat throughout the remainder of the campaign coming when they rested a host of players on the season’s final day — and they would go on to avenge that defeat in one of the most memorable Grand Finals in Australian football history.

Postecoglou’s difference-makers

Of course, beyond results, it’s also worth noting that across his stints in Australia, Japan and Scotland, a feature of Postecoglou’s trophy-winning teams has been that they’ve fielded arguably the best, most influential player in the league. He doesn’t always have a prolific goal-scorer, but there’s always that driving force in his sides.

In 1997-98, Paul Trimboli, one of the greatest players in Australian domestic league history, won his second Johnny Warren medal for South Melbourne. In 2010-11, Thomas Broich and Matt McKay finished second and third in the Johnny Warren Medal, with Broich going on to win the award in 2011-12 and 2013-14. In 2019, Teruhito Nakagawa was named J1 League Player of the Year for Yokohama, and in 22-23, Furuhashi was named PFA Scotland Players’ Player of the Year & SFWA Footballer of the Year.

Even at international level, Postecoglou’s second season at the helm of the Socceroos coincided with Massimo Luongo being named player of the tournament during Australia’s triumphant 2015 Asian Cup, securing the then-Swindon Town player a Ballon d’Or nomination.

Of course, it’s an easy correlation to make; successful teams by their very nature have the best players that contribute to that success. And Postecoglou has undoubtedly been blessed to work with some top-level talent in the various leagues he has coached in across his journey.

But Postecoglou also has proven track record of finding ways to bring the best out of his players, to find new ways to get them thriving in his system or to help them rediscover their best. Just observe the renaissance that Dejan Kulusevski has undergone this season after switching from the wing to a more central role, or how signed striker Dominic Solanke not only has four goals in nine Premier League starts but is also rapidly taking to the demands of a striker in Postecoglou’s system both in and out of possession.

However, injuries have haunted some of Spurs’ other key difference-makers, with defensive lynchpin Micky van de Ven — without whom Spurs’ loss rate leaps to 50% — continuing to be dogged by hamstring injuries, and talismanic skipper Son Heung-Min missing multiple games with hamstring injuries of his own.

“There’s always been [difference makers] in every club I’ve been in,” said Postecoglou. “There’s always players like that. And we certainly have them here [at Spurs].”

So perhaps the best possible indication that Postecoglou’s second-season trophy record will continue won’t be in the stats, but the form of Kulusevski, Solanke and Son. If one, two or all three can turn in career-best seasons, then all of a sudden silverware would feel within Spurs’ grasp.

Defeating Manchester City at the Etihad on Saturday would certainly be a good sign.