It has been claimed that some of the Tottenham Hotspur players held a meeting with Ange Postecoglou to demand that he adopt a more pragmatic style of play in the latter part of the 2024/25 campaign.
Ange Postecoglou has garnered plenty of praise for tweaking his approach in the latter stages of the Europa League campaign.
The Australian decided to play on the counter-attack away at Eintracht Frankfurt, Bodo/Glimt, and in the final against Manchester United, and the approach had the desired result, with Tottenham keeping a clean sheet in all three matches to lift the trophy.
However, it has now been claimed by one journalist that the decision was not entirely his own doing.
Tottenham players held mid-season meeting with Ange Postecoglou
ESPN’s James Olley has now revealed that the tactical change only came about after some senior Tottenham first-team squad players met with Postecoglou to ask him to reach a compromise on their opponents.
The journalist claimed that several senior players in the squad made it clear to the Australian that they needed to adapt to the opposition, with the Spurs boss deciding to compromise on some of his principles.
Olly said on ESPN FC: “My understanding is that the players were not entirely supportive of Ange Postecoglou’s approach in the second half of the season.
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“I believe a group of them went to see him and sort of said: ‘Look, we need to do more work on the opposition, we need to be more versatile.’ That’s one of the reasons why you saw a more pragmatic approach in Europe, where there was a competition where they actually could win something.
“I think there was a compromise there between what Ange Postecoglou wanted to do, how he wanted to play – ‘We are who we are, mate. We go and play how we want to play wherever we are’ – and the players sort of saying: ‘Well, that’s all well and good, but we’ve got five, six, seven, eight players out injured, we’re not actually the best team in the league like you’ve had at Celtic, in Japan in your career. We need to be more balanced in our approach.”
Tottenham have a difficult decision to make over Postecoglou
There has been a debate raging over the last few weeks regarding whether the Australian has done enough to keep his job.
While the likes of Robbie Keane believe Postecoglou deserves a third season, others such as Jamie O’Hara insist Tottenham should sack the Australian.
Olley has now revealed that despite Tottenham’s heroics in Europe, the club’s top brass cannot overlook the team’s disastrous Premier League campaign.
The journalist added: “The conversations I’ve had with some of the senior figures at the club can’t get past 22 league defeats, even though they have won their first trophy in 17 years. They just cannot get past that number and how badly that has affected the squad.”