Ange Postecoglou reveals sweeping behind the scenes changes at Tottenham
Ange Postecoglou has told football.london that a whole host of summer changes behind the scenes at Tottenham Hotspur have contributed to a fresh feeling at the club.
The Australian has freshened up his coaching staff by countering the departure of assistant boss Chris Davies to become Birmingham City manager by promoting Matt Wells and bringing in two new coaches to Spurs in Nick Montgomery and Sergio Raimundo.
The duo worked together at both Hibernian and Central Coast Mariners, with Montgomery the manager and Raimundo his assistant at both clubs. They won the A-League title with the unfancied Mariners and are now helping Postecoglou and Tottenham.
There have also been changes in the recruitment side of the north London club. Rob Mackenzie is now the head of scouting, having been promoted from chief scout this summer.
His former chief scout position has been taken by Alex Fraser, who joins the growing contingent that have made the move to Tottenham from Aston Villa. Fraser spent almost three years at the Midlands club, having worked previously for Brighton and for a spell seven years ago as a recruitment analyst at Spurs with Mackenzie.
As part of technical director Johan Lange's restructuring of Tottenham's recruitment team, Max Legath was also brought in as a first team scout, having been head of scouting at Basel and before that the chief scout of Bayern Munich's academy.
It's not just in recruitment either that big changes have occurred. Spurs' long time Head of Medicine and Sports Science Geoff Scott has left the club after 20 years. The New Zealander had become a familiar face at matches as a physio and at Hotspur Way.
Both Dejan Kulusevski and Destiny Udogie told football.london during the club's pre-season tour to Asia that they have noticed a change in training sessions this summer compared to last. The Swede felt that more tactical layers were now being given to the players and the Italian believed it was because the Postecoglou philosophy was now ingrained in them so there was more confidence during sessions.
football.london put this to Postecoglou and reminded him that he said last season that first he had to get the players to live and breath and trust his way and then he could add the tactical detail.
The Australian pointed to the whole environment as being responsible for the change, part of which he always looks to engineer.
"Potentially [it's about adding the layers], but I think it's something I've always been conscious of. Everybody says you should feel fresh and it helps we’ve got new staff, new coaches in and new voices, new sport science, new head of medical, so I think that helps, because I have always been a bit wary of players coming back from pre-season and knowing what to expect," he said.
"We want to improve, and if you’re going to improve, you can’t just sort of recap and dish out what we dished out last year, so I like things with a bit of freshness to it, but you do add layers. Obviously, that’s the foundation we built last year, the players have an understanding of our game, and we have to be progressing in the areas we need to."
So what has the arrival of two new coaches and the departure of one meant in terms of changing who does what on the training pitches?
"Nothing too sort of radical. Again, I’m really keen on them working as a team, and they’ve been really good," he said. "I mean, the guys who were here last year have been fantastic in kind of indoctrinating the new boys into how we work and giving them the time to adjust.
"But in that context, I’ve always been sort of encouraging of all of them to take responsibility, and how that gets divided up during the year, we’ll see how that develops, but at the moment we’re working really well.
"Like I said, I think the players are appreciating having a couple of different voices, different skillsets coming into the coaching group, and hopefully that means that the players get more information about what they need to do."
There is the potential for a change to the dynamic though in transplanting a manager and his assistant into the middle of another manager's coaching staff and working under a younger assistant boss. So did Postecoglou have any concerns about that?
"No, not really. I’ve never sort of worried about that stuff. To me, it’s just about what kind of people they are: if they’re the right kind of people, they’ll fit into the structure. Ultimately, I lead that, so it all kind of falls under my responsibility," he said.
"The guys who’ve come in don’t see themselves as the manager, assistant manager, they see themselves as part of a coaching group that will hopefully bring some success to the club, and they want to contribute to that. For all of them, hopefully it’s an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to develop, and as I said, an opportunity to contribute."
Postecoglou's second seasons at clubs are often spectacular affairs with the players having fully bought into his philosophy and with the added extra tactical layers, the goals, points and silverware follow.
The Spurs boss admitted he couldn't say yet how far he is along that process at Tottenham but he feels things are moving in the right direction.
"Look, it’s hard to say, because it’s not something I play up. For me, it’s always just about sticking to the process of what I believe are the things that should be put in a place to be successful," he said.
"I think we laid some basic foundations last year, we’re trying to build on them this year, and the one thing you can’t control is the competition, because they’re doing their own thing.
"From our perspective, it’s about building on the foundations of last year, making sure our players are better prepared this year than last for what’s ahead, and we’ll see where that takes us."
