Ange Postecoglou believes that Brennan Johnson's critics 'would be looking for a change of pants pretty quickly' if they had been in his position for Tottenham's last-gasp winning goal at Coventry.
Spurs were poor for much of their Carabao Cup third round tie at the Sky Blues on Wednesday night and were behind to a Brandon Thomas-Asante goal, but managed to turn things around late on with an 87th minute equaliser from Djed Spence and then Johnson struck in added time with a composed dinked effort past the goalkeeper and into the bottom corner.
It came in a week in which the Wales international deactivated his Instagram account in the wake of the North London Derby defeat to Arsenal, having previously limited who could comment on it due to the abuse he was suffering. Following Wednesday night's winning goal, Johnson's celebrations were muted and even after the game when captain Son Heung-min pushed him towards the away fans to enjoy a moment with them, it was a brief encounter.
"Yeah, I’m sure it does [affect him]. It’s a shame that something that young people, for their own reasons, seem to enjoy they have to close off from because of abuse. I don’t think that’s right," said Postecoglou. "I haven’t spoken to Brennan about it. The lads know what I’m about and my beliefs.
"I keep telling them the same thing, that the most important people in your life, they’re the ones you’ve got to worry about and their opinion, not anyone else’s in terms of validation. Just keep enjoying it.
"He won a game of football for us the other night with a really good finish and at the critical moment. I reckon you put any of his critics in that situation and they would be looking for a change of pants pretty quickly, I reckon. But they don’t think about that in that moment.
"But at the same time Brennan has had a dream of being a professional footballer his whole life from a little kid and now he’s living that dream. I’d hate to think he’s not enjoying it. I keep saying to him we’re all pretty blessed to do what we do, even in the worst of times we’re still pretty lucky to be able to do what we wanted to when we were 10-years-old, not many people can say that."
It was put to Postecoglou that Johnson's displays this season have shown that his challenge is to turn his game-turning substitute appearances against Newcastle and Coventry into strong displays from the start of matches.
"To a certain extent. The other night he [pretty much] started, he came on after ten minutes so it wasn’t like he was a late sub, but I think when he comes on as a sub, he can make an impact, oppositions will be tired, the game is a bit more open," said the Spurs boss. "With Brennan, it’s just consistency in his game that we’re constantly working on with him.
"He’s always getting into good areas, it’s about decision-making sometimes. It’s a difficult position to play as a young player. His skill-set, once he unlocks the stuff in his head that he’s really good at and adjust his game to make sure he gets the most out of that aspect of it, I think he’ll become a very important player for us.
"But he works very hard on that every day. Sometimes people just look at goals and assists which is the obvious measure for attacking players, but he also gives us a lot of other things, particularly working hard defensively, which he’s worked hard at. He had to. When he first came to us it wasn’t something that was natural to him. He’s got a lot better at that."
One player who missed the midweek cup win at Coventry was Cristian Romero as Postecoglou made eight changes to his team and left Romero and his centre-back partner Micky van de Ven out entirely to rest for this weekend's Premier League game against Brentford.
Following the North London Derby defeat, in which Romero had lost Arsenal defender Gabriel from a corner for the winning goal, the Spurs vice-captain briefly retweeted a tweet from a South American journalist suggesting that the World Cup-winning defender would have been more tired because Spurs did not pay for a private jet for him to come home sooner from international duty on Tuesday for the Sunday game.
Football Associations are responsible for flying their players back to their respective countries after international games, although sometimes clubs do step in if they have a game that is coming up quickly. In Romero's case he played for Argentine on Tuesday night in Colombia and would have returned on Wednesday but the Spurs' players had a day off on Thursday so there was little need to rush him back.
"I don’t like post-game trying to find reasons or maybe excuses for things. I’d rather deal with them on merit and we prepared well for that game, but that’s a separate issue," said Postecoglou. "We’ve always got to look after our player welfare and the international aspect of our footballers.
"I know better than most how travel and time difference and rest are important when preparing for games. It’s something we definitely look at but on an individual basis. My point around the Arsenal game was that I didn’t think it affected our build up."
On Romero's part in Arsenal's winner as Tottenham's defensive leader, the Australian added: "He is and he wasn’t happy about it. He also knows these things happen in football and it’s how you respond. I love him as a player and a person and the way he trains and conducts himself. He’s a winner.
"I was asked the other day if it’s important to have people in the building who've won things and he’s the living embodiment of that but it doesn’t make you bulletproof. You’ll have days when it doesn’t work out for you. He was disappointed he couldn’t do more in that space. It wasn’t just him though, it was a combination of things that cost us that goal and a combination of things that cost us that game. But it’s not like he’s gone into his shell afterwards. He wants to get back out there and make amends."
Had Tottenham tumbled out of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night to a Championship side then there might just have been talk of a crisis around Spurs. Postecoglou fully understands that it's all part of the modern game.
"Firstly, you can say, well if we lost the other night we would have been in crisis, but if we won our first game, I’d probably be sitting here and people would have been saying 'can you win a title this year', and both of them are just not the reality of my world," he said. "I have always been pretty good at staying clear-eyed and focused about what is important.
"To me, in terms of what I’m trying to build, I think the external noise, whether it’s valid or not, I just find it’s a massive distraction to what you’re trying to do. I learned along the way, in both ways, whether things are going well or not going well, not to let that external noise distract me from what I believe needs to be done.
"Many parts of my life, I’m not very disciplined, especially around eating, but when it comes to football I’m really disciplined. Nothing will take me away from what I think needs to be done. I don’t really care … not care … but I won’t let it enter my space."
He added: "Some of it's just about the world you live in and where you take in information. The people around you are important. So I make sure that I surround myself with people in the working environment that understand me and understand that, make sure that they’re also clear in what we’re trying to achieve and not get distracted and then outside of football.
"Again it’s the people you surround yourself with, where you get that sort of feedback and information you need for yourself. I’ve got a pretty sort of closed world around me that’s developed over 26 years of doing what I do and I can insulate myself maybe better than others from whatever the noise might be."
Spurs had played well on the whole this season until their midweek cup display but the results have not matched their performances. Postecoglou believes that the struggle is all part of the changes he's made across the north London club as the first manager to last a full season in half a decade at Tottenham.
"I ignore the tide and just keep swimming. Others may feel that way and if they do, there’s nothing wrong with that," he said. "You need to embrace the struggle. You don’t get success just by everything rolling out perfectly. There are times when you’ve just got to roll your sleeves up and keep going.
"Whether that’s swimming against the tide, running up the hill, going against the wind, you can use whatever metaphor you want, that’s great, that’s what you need. But I ignore it because I don’t think that’s going to help me in any way. What’s the best process for me is to stay steely-eyed focused on what I think I need to do to get us to where we want to.
"It’s all the same. It’s been a constant in my career, but I don’t think I’m in a unique space. I keep saying to people, show me a success story and I’ll show you a struggle. It’s not something that’s unique to me, it’s universal. People forget the struggle and look at the end bit, but you need to go through that.
"That’s the time that tests your resolve, tests your belief, tests everything you want to do. This is no different to anything else I’ve ever done. It’s exactly the same process."
So does Postecoglou at 59-years-old deal with pressure differently to the young coach who started at South Melbourne 26 years ago?
"You like to think you get a bit wiser with every experience. Maybe you kind of know what’s coming so you’re better prepared for it, but the one truism is I don’t change as a person or what I believe. That’s been a constant," he explained. "How I go about it depends on where you’re at, the club you’re at and who you’re dealing with. All those kind of things, but in terms of me as a person, I haven’t really changed that."
The advent of social media and the noise that comes from it has only played its part in decreasing the length of manager's tenures at clubs as knee-jerk reactions and anger from behind a phone or keyboard often translate to reactionary, panicked decisions in boardrooms rather than giving time to the processes they greenlit in the first place. So can a long-term manager exist in a short-term world?
"I've got no idea and thankfully long term for me is not that long," said the 59-year-old. "You have to live in that world and understand it. People say 'tell players to get off social media' but you can't do that, and they seem to enjoy engagement in that sense so who am I to judge?
"At first I really enjoyed it, the immediacy of the information. The information came from different sources. There were always ratbags on there who gave out abuse but the volume of that now has totally superseded anything positive you can get, from my perspective anyway. I'm a curious kind of guy, an information junkie and look at different ways to nourish my brain, my limited brain space as much as I can. But two or three years ago I started to realise I wasn't getting anything out of it any more or any sense of positivity about what I want to do, so now I stay off it."
He added: "I think that's an aspect to it. The tenure of managers and the patience people have with anything has exponentially shortened with the expansion of so many platforms of people in one way or another trying to rush to judgement and make calls on things.
"And then it's difficult. If I was a young manager today I suspect I would deal with it differently. I would probably think what's the next 20-30 years going to look like as a manager and I'd be thinking short-term with everything I do, with hits along the way just so I could get a career for myself, because there are very few spaces where that [long-term jobs] can exist. They do and they're the success stories but they're the exceptions rather than the rule."
When asked whether Spurs was the most difficult job he has taken on in his long career because of all of the surrounding noise and the size of the rebuild the club needed, Postecoglou thought for a moment.
"I think the most difficult job I had was the first one because I reckon if I had failed my first one I wouldn't have got anything else," he said. "I was coaching my hometown club. The club I grew up with and the only reason I got the opportunity is probably because they knew me at that club. I don't think I would have got an opportunity anywhere else if I wasn't successful.
"After five games we had no wins and were sitting bottom of the table. So that was pretty difficult. They were all challenging, but that's why I love it. That's why I do what I do and I enjoy it.
"I have always said I enjoy the struggle and the difficult bits, and who knows how it all ends? I don't know, no-one knows. For me it is just about doing what I believe is the right thing in my eyes to get success and hopefully change the fortunes of this fantastic football club."
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