Ledley King has called on Tottenham fans to give Ange Postecgolou time to get his ideas across to the squad, backing the new Spurs head coach to succeed in the Premier League.
While Postecoglou has enjoyed success everywhere he has been, this challenge is by far the biggest he has faced in his career.
Not only is he coming into the most competitive league in the world, where he will be pitting his wits against the best manager in the game, but he is also taking over a Spurs side that has finished outside the European places for the first time since 2009.
King is personally pleased with the appointment and praised the club for acting quickly for the Australian following Celtic’s Scottish Cup final last Saturday.
Ledley King urges fans to give Postecoglou time
When asked about Postecoglou’s arrival, The Tottenham legend told Football.London: “I think it’s a good appointment.
“Looking at his style of football it looks right up our street in terms of what we like to do, front-foot football, developing young players and scoring plenty of goals. I’m sure the players are really looking forward to getting a chance to work with him.
“It’s also good that we were able to do our business so quickly after the season finished.
“Props to the chairman for actually getting that done and over the line so quickly after Saturday’s [Scottish Cup] final and now we know what direction we’re moving in and really looking forward to pre-season and starting to build.”
King pointed to the fact that the club have offered Postecoglou a four-year deal as evidence that they view this as a long-term project but he admitted that it will be difficult for the 57-year-old to succeed unless the fans are willing to be patient.
The Spurs ambassador continued: “He’s signed a big, long contract.
“We know that his style of football is different to what we’ve been playing so we need to give him time to get his thoughts and messages across to the players.
“I’ve got no doubt that we will give him time because his methods and his style is something that suits us and suits the type of players we have.
“There’s not too much patience in football. It seems nowadays that after two or three bad results any manager is under pressure but we’ve brought him in for the long-term. He’s got a long-term contract.
“I urge the fans to give him a bit of time. He’s new to the Premier League as well and it’ll take a little bit of time to get his thoughts across. I’m just glad that he’s got pre-season from the first day and that will hopefully make a difference.”
King also insisted that even though the current make-up of the squad is geared to play in Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3 system, Spurs have the players to thrive in a front-foot, possession-based approach.
The 42-year-old added: “I believe that the style of football [Postecoglou] plays, he wants his team to be on the front foot and attacking and there’s no reason why wing-backs can’t do that when playing in a back four, especially if you have more of the ball and you’re going forward the majority of the time.
“I don’t see a problem with that. They’re all professional players and for me, any wing-back should be able to defend as well.
“We do have a number of players to come back into the squad [from loan] which will be interesting for the manager to look at.
“I’m sure each one will be excited at the prospect of showing the manager what they are capable of.
“There’s no doubt about it, there’s still a lot of talent within that group and it’s up to the manager now to decide who he wants to move forward with.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Looking at Postecoglou’s career, it is almost a guarantee that results will not be encouraging at the start, which is something that has happened in almost every one of his jobs. That is understandable because it takes time for the players to learn his ideas about football.
That would be especially true at Tottenham, given that the players are used to a counter-attacking approach.
So, there will be some bad defeats early in the season and it is important that Spurs fans do not create a toxic atmosphere by questioning the Australian and booing the team before the 57-year-old’s methods start clicking.
Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
