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Is this really make or break for Ange?
As Tottenham’s injury-wrecked season has ambled on and on, amid disappointing results and frustratingly poor performances, Ange Postecoglou has lost more and more support.
While the staggering injury crisis they have dealt with provides most of the explanation, that alone won’t satisfy impatient Spurs fans. They’ve been knocked out of the Carabao Cup, the FA Cup and their hopes of a top-half finish in the Premier League are hanging by a thread – so this tournament, the Europa League, is the only hope they have left of ending the club’s 16-year trophy drought.
The problem is that, despite having many of those injured players back, their first leg performance was terrible. (You can re-live our live blog of that match here, if you really want, as well as read my post-match analysis.)
Ange Postecoglou is under the pump.Credit: Getty Images
Postecoglou said after the 1-0 defeat to AZ that his team didn’t turn up with the right mentality, and that’s a real problem. It’s been a while since they’ve actually played full-bore Angeball.
The question is … why? Is it all down to the injuries they’ve suffered and the snowball effect that’s had on the squad? Are the players letting him down with their silly mistakes? Or is something breaking down on his end?
It remains to be seen what chairman Daniel Levy thinks, but a quick scan of social media will tell you that the vast majority of Spurs supporters seem to think Postecoglou’s tenure should be decided by this match. Win, and he can stay on. For a little while longer, at least.
Lose, and there will be immediate and ferocious calls for him to be sacked.
Postecoglou is aware of this, and was indeed asked about his future in the official pre-match press conference. This is some of what he had to say in response:
There are not many professions in the world where you have to come in and answer questions like that is there?
No, there isn’t, but I am going to be polite and say we’re focused on winning the game tomorrow night and need to put in a better performance than we did last Thursday.
Obviously that wasn’t anywhere near the standard we want to play. We did some good things at the weekend [against Bournemouth], did some not so good things, but we feel like if we can play with the intensity and tempo we played at the weekend, we’ll give ourselves a good chance to progress.
Postecoglou’s words in the match program say it all
Is this really make or break for Ange?
As Tottenham’s injury-wrecked season has ambled on and on, amid disappointing results and frustratingly poor performances, Ange Postecoglou has lost more and more support.
While the staggering injury crisis they have dealt with provides most of the explanation, that alone won’t satisfy impatient Spurs fans. They’ve been knocked out of the Carabao Cup, the FA Cup and their hopes of a top-half finish in the Premier League are hanging by a thread – so this tournament, the Europa League, is the only hope they have left of ending the club’s 16-year trophy drought.
The problem is that, despite having many of those injured players back, their first leg performance was terrible. (You can re-live our live blog of that match here, if you really want, as well as read my post-match analysis.)
Ange Postecoglou is under the pump.Credit: Getty Images
Postecoglou said after the 1-0 defeat to AZ that his team didn’t turn up with the right mentality, and that’s a real problem. It’s been a while since they’ve actually played full-bore Angeball.
The question is … why? Is it all down to the injuries they’ve suffered and the snowball effect that’s had on the squad? Are the players letting him down with their silly mistakes? Or is something breaking down on his end?
It remains to be seen what chairman Daniel Levy thinks, but a quick scan of social media will tell you that the vast majority of Spurs supporters seem to think Postecoglou’s tenure should be decided by this match. Win, and he can stay on. For a little while longer, at least.
Lose, and there will be immediate and ferocious calls for him to be sacked.
Postecoglou is aware of this, and was indeed asked about his future in the official pre-match press conference. This is some of what he had to say in response:
There are not many professions in the world where you have to come in and answer questions like that is there?
No, there isn’t, but I am going to be polite and say we’re focused on winning the game tomorrow night and need to put in a better performance than we did last Thursday.
Obviously that wasn’t anywhere near the standard we want to play. We did some good things at the weekend [against Bournemouth], did some not so good things, but we feel like if we can play with the intensity and tempo we played at the weekend, we’ll give ourselves a good chance to progress.
Poll: Have your say
Team news: Romero, van de Ven both start for Spurs
Here are the teams.
Tottenham has named a very strong starting XI – the only player missing from their full-strength side is the injured Dejan Kulusevski, but other than that, there’s quality across every line. This is the first time Spurs have named all four members of their leadership group – Guglielmo Vicario, Cristian Romero, James Maddison, and Son Heung-min – in the same line-up since October.
All up, there are six changes from the side that lost to AZ last week and four from the team that drew with Bournemouth at the weekend.
And for our Dutch readers, here’s the AZ Alkmaar line-up:
Hello and welcome
Good morning folks. Welcome to our live coverage of this morning’s clash between Tottenham Hotspur and AZ Alkmaar – the second leg of their round of 16 Europa League tie. This one’s at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, but the hosts, and their coach Ange Postecoglou, will need to recover from a 1-0 defeat and a very poor performance in the first leg last week in the Netherlands.
I’m Vince Rugari, and I’m here to guide you through every moment of the action in what will hopefully not be Postecoglou’s last match in charge of Spurs. But the Tottenham faithful are angry, and many – most, perhaps – will want him gone if they can’t progress to the quarter-finals.
Strap in. This could be a challenging morning.
