‘You’ve got to remember’ – Ange Postecoglou gives everyone a Spurs reality check

Ange Postecoglou has reminded everyone of the state that the Tottenham side was at the end of last season when he took over from Antonio Conte.

Ahead of the season, not many pundits backed Tottenham to finish in the top six, with some even suggesting that they might struggle to finish in the top half of the table after losing Harry Kane (Metro).

Expectations were then reset owing to the brilliant start that Spurs made to the campaign but the Lilywhites have failed to sustain that level of performance throughout the campaign, having particularly struggled over the last couple of months.

Postecoglou reminds people of where Spurs were

Postecoglou insisted that it was always going to take more than a couple of transfer windows to put the right pieces in place for Tottenham to challenge the best sides in the division.

The Spurs head coach told Optus Sport: “Yeah, and it was never going to happen in two transfer windows. What you’ve got to remember is, when I came in last year, the team had finished eighth last season but it wasn’t eighth of a team that was on the climb.

“It was eighth for a team that was kind of going in the other direction because a lot of the players were getting to an age where it was getting time for the next challenge. And then you’ve lost your best player from that as well.

“So you’ve got eighth, decline, you lose your best player and, by the way, we want you to totally change the way we play from this [defensive football] to the other end of the spectrum. So all those kinds of factors I knew was never going to get done in two transfer windows, this process of building a squad. Even the starting XI, we’re in the infancy of.”

The 58-year-old insisted that Spurs are ahead of where he expected them to be at this stage of the window, owing to the smart recruitment decisions they have made but he insisted that more gaps have to be filled.

Postecoglou added: “Now I think we’ve done really well in the transfer windows so far which means we’re probably further ahead than I thought we’d be in terms of the squad.

“Because when I look at [Guglielmo] Vicario, [Micky] Van de Ven, [Destiny] Udogie, Pape Sarr, Brennan Johnson – guys who are kind of in their first year of real Premier League at this club, all 20/21/22, I think [wow]. Apart from Vicario, but he’s still fairly inexperienced for a goalkeeper.

“I think I’ve got the formation there of being further along, but we need to start filling the gaps further up in terms of our starting XI but also, like you said, more importantly for our squad.”

Spurs Web Opinion

Even though we have lost Kane, our squad is certainly a lot stronger than it was last season, owing to the impressive additions we have made over the last couple of windows. If we can add another three of four top-class players to the squad this summer, the side could improve exponentially.