Tottenham under Ange Postecoglou - another year of manic ups and downs?

If that’s the case then Tottenham’s 3-2 defeat to Brighton on Sunday is the distillation of what Ange Postecoglou brings to the Premier League, although as his press conferences become increasingly shirty you wouldn’t want to say that to his face.

It certainly isn’t part of the plan. A raging press and high line is supposed to bring control, is supposed to pummel the other team into submission, but ever since the ten-game blitz at the start of his debut season came to an abrupt end the Premier League has looked too savvy for that.

Defeat at the Amex makes it 50 points from the last 35 Premier League games. We are three matches short of a full season of mid-table bobbing defined as much by the slack defending as care-free attacking – but most of all by end-to-end games that are just too volatile to breed confidence in the long-term plan.

The arguments against playing the Postecoglou way, or rather playing the Postecoglou way without the slightest hint of compromise, are well understood. You can perfect Plan A and simply repeat it in Scotland, Japan, and Australia, but at the top of the English game the quality of the opponent demands tinkering and pragmatism, not least because transitional football is so in-vogue across the division.

Everybody wants the opposition to press them and to leave big spaces in behind when the ball turns over. Spurs risk being so obsessed by their own vision they fail to notice it plays into the hands of their opponents.

Those were the arguments last season, anyway, but over the course of seven games in 2024/25 Postecoglou appeared to have successfully countered the reproach – only to see a new problem rear its head.

A rejigged central midfield seems to have sparked Spurs back into life as Dejan Kulusevski, operating as a number ten alongside James Maddison, spreads panic in the opposition midfield. That was the case in the 3-0 win at Manchester United, the 3-1 win against Brentford, and for the first half against Brighton.

At half-time at the Amex, with Spurs looking set for a fifth consecutive win in all competitions, Postecoglou’s midfield change was the only story. But the way they collapsed in the second half was instructive of a brand new concern.

Brighton’s first and second goals were very simply constructed down Tottenham’s right, in each case resulting from Spurs failing to apply any pressure to the ball. As Postecoglou put it: “We lost all our duels, we weren’t competitive, and if you're not competitive, irrespective of what you do tactically, it is not going to work.”

The only plausible explanation for the sudden change was fatigue following their Thursday night Europa League victory at Ferencvaros in Budapest.

The Thursday-Sunday schedule: it’s a killer for so many clubs, but it’s hard to think of one more vulnerable to its effects than Postecoglou’s chaotic, all-action Spurs.

This is a team that began to crumble towards the end of last season, winning 13 points from the final 11 Premier League matches of the campaign after running themselves into the ground – and that was without any midweek action.

Spurs will surely have at least 10 Thursday Europa League matches added to the schedule this season. That is enough to seriously knock them off kilter, and if the Brighton capitulation is anything to go by it’s a process already underway.

More optimistic takes are available. Dominic Solanke is settling very nicely and the presence of a genuine centre-forward should take Spurs to the next level. Had Heung-Min Son been fit to play instead of Timo Werner Tottenham probably would have beaten Brighton to make it five in a row in all competitions.

But that kind of consistency, that kind of calm progress, really doesn’t feel in keeping with what Postecoglou brings to north London. Another year of manic ups and downs is far more likely than things clicking into place.

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