Paul Merson has said that Ange Postecoglou has had an impressive first season at Tottenham, given the issues he was dealing with but warned the Australian that Spurs fans will not be as patient if results do not improve next season.
Merson was one of several pundits who suggested last summer that Tottenham would struggle after the departure of Harry Kane, with hardly anyone giving the Lilywhites any hope of finishing in the top six.
The former Arsenal midfielder acknowledged that Postecoglou has done better than expected but he insisted that the supporters will turn on the Australian next season if his style of football does not produce consistent wins.
He told Sky Sports: “After where I said they’d come it’s been outstanding because I didn’t see them finishing in the top half without Harry Kane. I thought they were so reliant on him and then a mate of mine texted me and said, ‘We’ll be much better without him’. I thought they were at times.
“But the squad isn’t big enough. It’s been alright this season – I think they [the fans] have seen a much better improvement in football and the entertainment. I’ve liked watching them as a neutral, but that’s not very good because when you’re watching a team and you like watching them as a neutral that’s telling you there’s going to be goals at either end and they’re a bit open.
“But I don’t think he gets next year. I think the fans this year were alright, ‘It’s been an upgrade. It’s entertaining. We’re playing front-foot football’, but you can’t keep on getting beaten at Fulham away, there away and here away, and they’re getting battered by teams. Sooner or later the fans are going to go, ‘Wait there a minute, we’re not having this’, so that’d be my only problem.”
Postecoglou needs to make progress at Spurs next season
Merson was also not impressed with Postecoglou for the critical statement that he made about the Tottenham supporters not wanting to see their side win against Manchester City.
The pundit accused the Spurs head coach of not understanding the club’s rivalry with Arsenal and suggested that his post-match statement was quite self-serving.
The 56-year-old added: “I think he’s got to understand the mentality of the fans. What he has done at Tottenham [in the 2-0 home defeat to Man City] I thought was harsh. I like Ange, and I love the way he comes across, but come on mate, this is Arsenal vs Tottenham, I’ve played in enough of them.
“You’re alright, you’ll go home to your wife but you’re not sitting in an office and you haven’t got 60 to 70 Arsenal fans that are going to ring you every minute of the day for the next six or seven months. So I think he needs to understand that. I don’t know if he was doing that to make him look great and go, ‘Look, I’m really up for it’.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I wanted Tottenham to beat Manchester City but I also found Postecoglou’s statement about the supporters’ mentality after that game to be quite bizarre.
A man of the Australian’s experience in the game would have surely anticipated that Spurs supporters would have not wanted to aid their fiercest rivals win the title.