'Ear cup-gate' - A new low after Chelsea defeat
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Hello everybody and welcome once again to The View from the Lane, the multi-award winning Tottenham Hotspur podcast from The Athletic. Joining me, Danny Kelly, today are Jack Pitbrook and Jay Harris. Welcome everybody, and that includes those of you listening. Of course, we'll be looking back on a controversial night at Stamford Bridge as Hans-Poste Coglu's relationship with the Spurs fans reaches, I guess it's fair to say, a new low. We'll look ahead to Sunday's game against Southampton.

A game of utter meaninglessness in many ways, meaninglessnessness, but one in which they've got to try and pull some kind of form together. But first, Chelsea 1, Tottenham 0. No surprise in that, suppose. Always lose to Chelsea, don't they?

I don't want to be negative. I certainly don't want to be labelled negative because I want Spurs to win every game. And equally, I don't want to lead the jury. So I'm going to start with just two facts. On a micro level, this season and very locally, in a Premier League with seven London clubs, Spurs have now acquired the least points of any of those seven clubs from London derbies. On a bigger scale, and looking back,

through the newly refurbished Webb telescope into the dawn of time. In terms of percentage losses in a season,

Spurs are now on target to beat the 1934-35 season 90 years ago. This may well be their worst. They could turn it around. They could win all the remaining games. At the moment, they're heading for their worst season in terms of defeats as a percentage of the games played since 90 years ago. So that's the big and small.

Let's get back to the match. Jack, I'll start with you. I so want to lead the jury, but I must shut up. This season, I think Spurs have, because they've lost so many games, they've lost games in so many different ways, right? They've had some spectacular losses. They've lost some games that they should never, ever have lost. You know, they've lost Ipswich at home, Leicester City at home. They've lost twice from being 2-0 up.

But amid all the kind of dramatic, surprising, interesting defeats, this was the most predictable defeat of all time. Like, just because it's Chelsea away, Tottenham didn't really show up. I thought that Chelsea... Like, if Chelsea had been as good as they were in the first few months of the season, they would have won 4-5-0. Like, they were... The first half was...

I'd say about the 100th time this season where Tottenham haven't really started at all, didn't really get going. And funnily enough, until Sarr came on for Bergwijn, more of which later. But they, yeah, I just thought they were really poor in all aspects of the game. It was just inevitable. Basically, from the moment where Van de Ven has hammered the ball against his own post after about 38 seconds,

you just knew that it was a mess. I was just listening back to Vicario's post-match interview and he said something which I sort of need your help to unpick because he said, I think we missed a bit of energy to try to really believe to win this game. Now, later on in the interview, when he's specifically asked about belief, he sort of pushes back on it. So is he saying they lacked energy even though they've had an extra week off compared to...

everybody else, which to me is just baffling because as Jack said, they started so sluggishly. I'm just going back through my notes. I think Jed Spence passed the ball straight out of play in the first minute. I mean, we know that Vicario made a couple of great saves, but the first

35 minutes he was all over the place wasn't there a point where he dribbled the ball along the goal line passed it and it hit Pedro Neto he passed it straight out of play under no pressure when Romero was five yards or so away from him it

It was just so... That nutty punch after 13 minutes where... Exactly. Jack's tiny baby could have caught it in her teeth. Is that fair? Yeah, yeah, it's fair. It's just, it was such an erratic performance. And, you know, before the game, this was the moment where Van and Ben Romero, they were going to be reunited at the back.

for the first time since the Chelsea game in December. Spurs were going to have all their leaders in terms of Vicario, Maddison, Romero and Son on the pitch at the same time. You know, this was pretty much their strongest starting XI apart from Kulishevsky and maybe Poro. And they just looked as out of sorts as they have done for the last couple of months. Look, in the second half of today's podcast, we'll get on to

the way that the manager reacted. I know that's the bigger story, but I just want to try and nail down this football match. We shouldn't, we shouldn't talk about, we shouldn't talk so much about the ear cupping and all that, that we don't talk about the football because that is effectively letting that is to let the football off the hook.

Which we should not do. Are you saying we're letting the players off the hook? No, I'm saying that we shouldn't spend so much time talking about how the manager conducted himself that we don't talk about how badly Tottenham played because we can do both. Yeah, of course. Thank you. And if that's all we talk about in 45 minutes to an hour, that'll be fine as well. Beccario talking about belief and energy, which I kind of personally believe are the bare minimums

whether you're playing for Real Madrid or Nottingham Pork Butchers, whether you're earning 300 grand a week or turning up to pay your subs, a bit of belief and energy are the bare minimum. So focusing on that was, I thought as well, Jay, when I haven't heard, I've read those comments and I thought that is a very odd thing to say. But Jack, let me just pull the pin out of the hand grenade then.

and pass it over to you. Talk to me about the football because there are statistics you can produce here or you can talk about the eye test. We talk again and again and again in this podcast as though the team were somehow failing to reach the standards that they could possibly be playing at.

Are we actually deluding ourselves? Are we just watching a rotten football team? Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question, something I've wrestled with a lot this season. I mean, it's very obvious to me that this is a bad team which has occasionally had good days. I don't think it doesn't hold water anymore to say they're a good but flawed team. Like, good but flawed teams don't lose 16 out of 30 league games, right? They're a bad team who is capable of having very good days. Yeah.

But I think they've been, in the main, really bad for the last few months. I mean, really for the whole season. But what I mean by that is, a lot of what we saw last night, you saw in Fulham away, you saw in the first half of Bournemouth, you saw in A.Z. Altmaier away, even the City home game. It's kind of consistency here in the sense that

I think they've lost a lot of their intensity without the ball, which they need to play with. They didn't make things difficult at all for Chelsea. The number of times that Chelsea could kind of knock the ball forward and then all of a sudden Palmer or Jackson would have the ball within a ridiculous amount of space and just be able to run straight through the middle of the pitch with it. No resistance at all from Tottenham. The number of times it was so easy for Sancho to get 1v1 against Spence and Spence was having to kind of backpedal all the time just to...

Just to stay afloat, like...

And then when Spurs got the ball, they had no idea what to do with it. There was no pattern. They didn't really use Solanke properly, I don't think. They never really released Son or Odebeer into good positions. Occasionally, like, you know, a doggy or Spence would run forward with the ball and then it would all stop and then they'd knock the ball out of play or whatever. It took basically about 40 minutes for Maddison or Son to touch the ball at all, it felt like.

So yeah, it was really bad. It was bad in a way which was generally familiar with what we've seen, but it's clearly, you know, this is not a team that's going anywhere. Jay, I thought your head was going to fall off. You were nodding so vigorously there. I think there's a couple of things I want to pick up on. Firstly, like Jack said, it's very clear now this is not a particularly good team. And

While the injury crisis was going on, my suspicion was the injury crisis has become a convenient excuse for a team that was already playing quite badly. But you hope to be proven wrong and that when those players come back, you start to see the shoots of progress and development again. But I think now we can sort of say the last month or so when a lot of those players have been back, nothing's really changed. They're still performing just as miserably as they were before. And then the other element is the team did just lose

a bit of their composure and a bit of their discipline last night. I tweeted about this at the time, but Romero getting booked for going up to Colwell is just so silly. And it's all because him and Colwell were tussling with each other at a corner 20 minutes before. You don't need to get involved. All that does is...

is whip up the crowd at Stamford Bridge even more, just adds to that intensity level. And that's when you need Son, Vaccaro, Maddison, whoever it is, the other leaders, to just calm your team down, remain composed, ignore all that nonsense going on. But they just allowed themselves to get wound up and get... Even Porro, when he screamed at the linesman, it was just so unnecessary. And this team, I think last night you could really see signs of the tension that these players are feeling. I thought Romero was all over the place yesterday. He was so...

I mean, I thought he played badly. There were quite a few times that Chelsea would hit the ball over the top. Jackson would just brush him out of the way. But he was so kind of riled up by this. You could tell he was sort of a bit on edge. Yeah, like kind of getting involved in things he shouldn't get involved with, like the thing with Colwell.

but he wasn't doing the main bit of his job properly either. I mean, he wasn't the only one to play badly, but... If Danso, on a complete tangent, if Danso was fit right now, I'd say, I think I'd trust him to start against Eintracht Frankfurt more than Romero. But that's a conversation for next week.

Sure, and it may also be a reflection of where Cristiano Romero's mind is at because, as I say, when I did that little thing a couple of podcasts ago about how brilliantly he played one second, notwithstanding, against Brazil, albeit a very, very disjointed Brazil, he can still do it when he wants to. Particularly after international breaks, with all due respect to the pair of you, you can't believe what people write and say off the back of international breaks because, you know, the

players

talk to their local media very differently than they do to people they have to see day by day. But it does look as though Romero has decided he needs to get out of Spurs, and he looked thoroughly distracted. And, of course, you're absolutely right. Getting yourself booked in a cauldron when you're the player most likely to get booked for a foul as well puts the whole team on edge because they think they're into that place. Look, everybody played well. But get on to Bergvall in a minute because everybody –

contributed to a very poor performance and goodness I know that doing this podcast I'm going to say it one more time and you listen to it it's better when things are going well and I wish we were talking about a massive victory at Chelsea that's propelled Spurs into the Champions League places but we're not

The worry for me, Jay, sorry, there are several of them. You know, I think that the midfield combinations we're picking, it's almost inevitable that whatever three to get picked, they are transparent and a tissue rather than a wall in front of the back four.

But the inability anymore to get the ball forward into meaningfully dangerous positions, I haven't seen a Spurs team as hopeless at it. And I've thought about this a lot last night. At the turn of the century, when you two were barely alive, and Jack May had been at primary school, Spurs had no money at all. And people like Glenn Hoddle were trying to make do with bits and pieces of players they'd picked up from other clubs. And even that team...

found the way sometimes by belting it long to get into the opposition's penalty area and cause them some strife increasingly Spurs look like they just can't get the ball forward Jay yeah there's a few things to tackle with that Jack's already mentioned that Madison was pretty anonymous in the first half I think he only sort of came into the game towards the end when it opened up a little bit more but even in the first half I remember there was a moment where he had a

fairly simple pass out wide to Son on the left wing and it got intercepted. We should probably mention that this is the first time that defence had started together ever, I think. And obviously we've not seen Spence very often on the right, even though it's his natural position. And I felt like you could tell Spence and Oliver were playing together for the first time. It was just, you know, they don't quite fully understand each other's movements and runs. And there was a couple of times where

They worked it quite nicely down the wing and then one of them would misinterpret a pass and Chelsea regained possession and they just had to go back to zero. We will come on to Bergvall in a minute. Why not talk about him now? He does sometimes feel like the only player with a bit of thrust in midfield. The amount of times he dribbles forward and I think he's overrun the ball and then he manages to get a toe to it and beat the defender is remarkable. But there are not many occasions where

I've seen him afraid in a game, maybe none. Even his first performance against Leicester City when he made that risky back pass and Vicario shouted at him, he still was asking for the ball a few seconds later. Ben Tenko, you know, didn't do much. You do feel for Solanke, this was his, the biggest move of his career, or certainly this was the move which sort of reignited his career after being at other clubs, Chelsea, Liverpool in the beginning.

And I think he's on, what, seven league goals? He runs so much for this team, does everything he can out of possession, and he just has to feed off absolute scraps. He's basically trying to be a one-man army up there. And Spurs just have to find a way to get him into the games more and to support him more. Support him is the issue, yeah. It just feels like he's trying to do everything by himself. And, you know, Sky were on the television coverage showing his touch map after...

after the game and you know he barely touched it I'm like well it's just that's not his fault he's doing everything within his power to to impact the game no no you're right strikers I mean you know it's a team game so you know we're saying the team was terrible but the one the striker in these 4-2-3-1 formations if that's what it was because I couldn't entirely tell

They're the ones who have the greatest excuses. If the ball isn't getting up to them, what are they doing? What can they do? And if it does get to you and you're surrounded by three of the opposition's players and you're unsupported, what can you do? Look, it verged on a disaster at times. To me, they looked like they were going to concede most of the time. They made a couple of chances late on. It's the third successive game which they haven't had a shot on target in the first half. I mean...

make of that what you want. Jack, I haven't prepared you for this, but I really want to hear your full exposition

because there was a mad moment when Spurs equalised. As you know, when I'm watching it on the TV, I make copious notes about what's going on. And I was watching it with Mrs Kelly, who I think was relieved because perhaps my blood pressure might have gone down a couple of notches when Spurs equalised. And she actually said to me, why aren't you making a note? I said, because this goal's not going to stand. Because the way things are, Spurs are just not going to get that break.

Plus, Chelsea players did exactly what you're supposed to do in these situations. Now, you refuse to kick off until the VAR gets time to find something to disallow the goal. And again, I don't want to be a person who always finds the bad in things, but that to me looked like it was a clash in the middle of pitch.

And I had no idea whether it was a foul or not would lead to that goal being disallowed. But Jack, first of all, mea culpa. First, I'll make my confession, and I've said this before. I was one of the people who, on national radio with large audiences, spent two, three, four years banging on the desk saying we've got to bring in video assistance for the referees because the standard of refereeing in the English game is pathetic. And I think it favoured the big teams, including the one I happen to support.

I must admit, and I have to admit when you're wrong, I did not see the consequences of bringing in VAR. It has, well, you can tell me because, Jack, you've been very public, very vocal about this, and I think you're right. We, and post-Cogler after the game too, we are destroying a game that all of us love. Otherwise, why would we be doing this for a living? We've actually destroyed the game. Yeah, we have destroyed the game, and we've destroyed the game in...

pursuit of a fantasy a fiction like 100% like we were sold this you know the 100% accuracy machine it doesn't exist we ruined we we've given our game away for something that doesn't exist and like we saw a perfect example right is the fact that when we were sold VAR we were told this will stop this will stop simulation players won't dive anymore because we'll be able to objectively know whether they were found or not but obviously last night and this happened this happened so much but last night it's not a bad example and

Obviously, after the foul between Sarr and Caicedo, if you think you've been fouled, it's in your interest to go to ground and cause a fuss to invoke the technology on your behalf. I'm not saying that Caicedo is making it up. Clearly, there is a foul there. But as you pointed to the Chelsea players bringing the referee's attention to the incident,

In the era of VAR, you're absolutely incentivized to make a big deal out of things so that the referee will check it. If you're too honest and you don't go down, you don't clutch your knee, then VAR will not intercede. So this idea that it would kind of cleanse player behavior...

has turned out to be as nonsense as most of the other claims made for it. I think it's... I mean, I thought... I certainly didn't think Postacoglu conducted himself well afterwards, but I did think he was spot on about VAR. I think he's... I think that was the one bit of his press conference that I really did agree with. I think that...

we, you know, so much has been lost and basically nothing has been gained. And, you know, I could talk about this all day. I'm not going to, but just briefly, Tarkovsky-McAllister incident. I mean, straight after the game, PGMML said, yes, that should have been a red card. And of course it should have been a red card, but why have we destroyed football to bring in an extra level of, you know,

And human fallibility. Yeah, and then it turns out that they can't get obvious decisions right. It proves that the idea of 100% accuracy is just a fiction. It's always been a fiction. And I'm sorry, I am so religiously convicted. I'm so religiously convinced about this.

that if you're listening to this and you think I'm defending PGMOL, or if you're going to say it's not the technology that's the problem, it's the people in charge, I'm really sorry, but I'm not interested. I'm completely unpersuadable on this point. Nothing could persuade me to a different point of view other than the one that I hold, because I hold it so, so deeply. Jack, are you following closely events in Scandinavia regarding VAR?

They're kind of moving to abolish, aren't they? Yeah, it started in Norway where the fans started saying we're not coming to watch this shit. And then it's now spread to Sweden where the Swedish FA are consulting with UEFA to say we are looking for ways to abandon this because it's just not satisfactory for the supporters of the game. And they appear...

and I'll be doing more about this on Sunday on Trans Europe Express, they appear to be prepared to be taken out of the European competitions. If they can do it, so can we. Absolutely. There are vested interests in all the big countries, including people who make a decent living at officiating football matches. But...

We have to go for complete abolition. There's no point in trying to... Full abolition now. Don't accept anything short of that. There's no point in trying to fiddle with it. It's useless. Jay, you're laughing at us, shouting at clouds. No, no, no. I just didn't want to intervene in your conversation, but I held a very similar view when the talk about VAR first came in. Oh. Football is so...

No, no, no. I'm saying football is so subjective. You and I could look at the same challenge, foul, whatever it is you want to call it, and have two completely different opinions. There's just too many grey areas in football, as like Jack said, to have 100% accuracy. And once you go down that route and you open Pandora's box, it's just so difficult to gain any control of it. And...

Ever since PGMOL started explaining decisions, and I think that pretty much coincides with when Howard Webb took over, I respect their intentions in terms of being open and honest and communicating things. But I also feel like now everybody feels like every single decision

should be explained and the VAR audio should be released. And it just then turns single decision into like a week long saga and controversy. And it just completely distracts from, from anything else. Basically, even now we're talking about VAR when really should be talking about post-COG and spurs. Do you know what I mean? It just becomes a massive destruction. Yeah. I don't, I don't want it to be a distraction, but it, it,

Jack has been so forthright about this and while without you know you see takes on it we'll have to storm the FA and burn down Stockley Park or wherever they're doing this nonsense from now Jack's pretty considered chap all in all so when people

I don't mind me going on about it. You expect me to be setting fire to my own hair about things, what little there is. But when people like Jack start going on about it, you know that the whole system is in trouble. And a bit like so much in society, just because something has been there and because powerful people organise it doesn't mean it's unchangeable.

and we can change it. Listen, let's take a quick break. When we come back, I want to talk about an extraordinarily strange few days at Spurs in terms of people's attitudes. And we'll talk about the way Andrew Posterkoglu reflected on the game after that 1-0 defeat at Chelsea. A defeat in and of itself utterly predictable, but in a run of defeats, each one adds something.

vinegar to the chips of a horrible season. Coming up next here on The View from the Name of, you're listening to me, Danny Kelly, Jay Harris and Jack Pitbrook.

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Towing capacity varies by configuration. See Nissan Towing Guide and Owner's Manual for additional information. Always secure cargo. Yeah, welcome back to The View from Lane. All singing, all dancing, hats on the side of the head. All right. After the game and during the game, there was stuff going on with the manager. And look, we've already blamed the players to some extent as well here. So let's not say we're just picking on him or, to use his word, there's an agenda here.

But Jack, we'll start. Why don't you tell me about Ange Postelkoglu. From the moment the fans booed at the substitutions, when Bergvall was taken off in particular, there was clearly rumblings in the travelling Spurs support. Let's start with that.

That whole business and how it unfolded even after the game of the manager wanting to prove himself right to the Spurs fans. So on 65 minutes, Bergval came off for Saar and the Spurs away end, who were just down to our left in the press box, to Postakoglu's left in the technical area, were obviously unhappy with this. And quite a few of them started singing, you don't know what you're doing.

to Postacoglu, which I'm not sure if it's the first time I've heard that. And then five minutes later, Sarr smacks in this equalising goal. And everything goes mad. Spurs fans jumping up and down. Chelsea players running after Craig Pawson, trying to invoke VAR.

And then, but I kind of look quite, obviously the managers are right down in front of us at Stamford Bridge. We're right behind the dugouts. And so you get a really good view of what they're up to. And quite a few of us looked over to Pastor Coghlu. And as soon as the girl went in, he turned to his, he turned kind of 90 degrees to his left. So he was directly facing the away end and he kind of locked his eyes and

on the away end. There must have been, I guess, maybe 2,000 Tottenham fans in that corner? Maybe 3,000? He locked his eyes on the Tottenham away end, put his right hand to his right ear in what people call an ear cupping, as in, you know, the international gesture for, I can't hear you now. He held his hand up there for a few seconds and then he extended his hand and kind of waved at them with a big grin on his face and

And then he put his hand back in his pockets. He continued to stare at the fans. And then he kind of noticed that VAR was happening. So this whole thing only lasted for a few seconds. But from where I was sat, and I wasn't the only person with this view of it, and I certainly wasn't the only person to reach this interpretation, I thought it was really, really clear to me that he was...

saying to the fans, not so smart now, are you? That's how I read it. You know, they mocked his substitution.

Saar had then scored a great goal and he was saying, well, you know, maybe you guys think it's easy from up in the stands, but actually I'm the one making the decisions. Now, you know, I'm sure we'll get onto this, but Postakoglu has disputed that interpretation in his post-match press conference and post-match media duties. But that is how I read it at the time. He did, Jay, particularly in the Sky interview, work with Patrick Davison,

among many other things that happened in that. We'll talk about that, no doubt. He did try and muddy the waters about what that was. Maybe he's telling the truth. I only saw it, you know, in a replay on the TV. I wasn't there close by the incident like Jack was. I didn't think it was a very convincing defence that he was just trying to get them to enjoy the equaliser. I thought he looked genuinely a bit surprised when Patrick Davison asked him that question. And as you sort of alluded to,

Postakoglu's defence was that he couldn't really hear the fans and he wanted them to enjoy that moment and raise their noise levels. I don't completely buy that defence because I've seen him at other games this season sort of stare into the away end as if he's trying to make some sort of strange point. But what I thought was really interesting is in Jack's piece on the Athletic, which went up this morning, just talking about that moment and the repercussions of it.

A lot of the fans in the comments think that he's lying in that interview. And I think that alone is quite damning that the fan base are basically saying, we don't believe your excuse. We think that you've purposefully tried to mug us off.

And it's backfired. The fact that even if Postacoglu didn't mean that with his gesture, it's how the majority of people have interpreted it. It's too far to sort of go back and say that's not the case now. And this just follows in a long line of incidents between Postacoglu and the fan base, which just do not help the relations anymore.

between them whatsoever and obviously you mentioned Bournemouth and that was sort of where it first felt like it was really cranking up we've had Leicester City since we've had I think it might have been a Fulham fan who approached him at that game but even still there was some something that happened after Fulham and it just shows the relationship is is breaking down and and as with every week and every game I think more people are turning on Posto Coglu and just deciding do you know what

We gave you the benefit of the doubt during the injury crisis. Nothing's changing. It's just getting worse. You seem to be immune to criticism, or that's certainly what you say in press conferences, but your actions are telling us the complete opposite. He just looks like a manager who knows he's under immense pressure. He knows that the Athletic and other places are reporting about his long-term future being in serious doubt. And actions like that just sort of scream at a man that,

who feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. That defence of the ear cupping, and...

I would have had more respect if he'd just said, yeah, I want them to shut up. I'm in charge here. Until they literally take my name off the car park, I'm in charge. If he'd had a laugh about it, I don't think it would have... I mean, it wouldn't have made up for the 16 league defeats this season. But if he'd come out and said, yeah, I was having a laugh with the fans. I got a little bit emotional. It was all men in good spirits. I didn't offend anyone. And we're grown-ups. I like to think people would have...

accepted that to an extent. But I just think the whole... this defence, which I don't think stands up to any scrutiny at all. Like, I just think it's... I just don't believe it. And I don't think anybody believes it. For a number of reasons. Like, one, if he was G-ing up the crowd, he would have done the gesture that means G-ing up the crowd, which is when you wave your hands at the air. Like, literally, everybody knows what that is. That is not what he did. If he didn't mean this as a dig on the fans...

maybe he would have gone over to the fans after the game and cut them, which he didn't do. He stood sheepishly in the middle of the pitch, let the players go over and get shouted at by the fans while he hung back. If he was, as he says, impervious to criticism, then he would have ignored a lot of the criticism. But he hasn't been impervious to criticism this season. Like there's a kind of... Postacoglu likes to describe himself as being some, you know, Mr. Waterford ducks back, it doesn't bother me, I love the difficult moments, that kind of stuff.

But there's been countless number of times this season, home games, away games, where clearly the abuse and the barbs get to him. And, you know, that's totally fine. It's obviously, you know, being a manager is tough. Of course. And people are going to react to stuff they don't like.

But at the same time, maybe he should not try to portray himself as Mr Thick-Skinned when the evidence suggests the opposite. I don't really buy his defence. I don't think anybody in the room in the press conference bought the defence. I don't think any Spurs fans buy the defence. We should also add, just on what happened at full time, that...

it was very similar to what happened at Bournemouth. So I'm pretty certain the Bournemouth game, Postakoglu hung back on the halfway line and then the fans started shouting at him and had a bit of a, I think what he described as direct feedback when he went over.

Not all, but a lot of the away end left

I mean, there was about 15, 14 minutes maybe of added time yesterday. And like during which time lots of fans, you know, tried to get the tube back from Fulham Broadway. So by the final whistle, there weren't that many people there, which I think probably saved the, you know, meant that the reaction was less bad than it might have been. Listen, the moment of conflict with Patrick Davidson of Sky about that ear cupping incident, as we'll now have to call it, Eargate incident,

actually, I thought, smokescreened, and I hope he's not playing 4D chess. I don't even think there is a 4D chess. But the other part of the interview I found bewildering when after what we've seen on the pitch, Andrew...

was saying he thought he could see signs that it was all coming back together again. I don't know. What's he going to say? He's not going to go out there and say 16 defeats. Aren't we doing great guys? Um, but even that, um, it was, it was a very, very strange interview. Um, and I'm on his side. Sometimes when you pull up Joe,

journalists when they're clearly trying to guide you down one road or another leading the jury as I always refer to it and he did try with Patrick several times through that and in the end you had that strange bit with Patrick saying there is no agenda and even if there is you've just got to find ways of of dealing with it I should make the point as well

Matisse Tell, who had taken to talking to the fans after defeats, because that's what they do in the Bundesliga, has learned his lesson and kept well away from it yesterday. Vicario led the interface with the fans and afterwards he was seen to be punching the wall in the tunnel. Things are not happy in that camp. Just on the Patrick Davison interview, he did remarkably well to...

sort of retain his composure because, you know, it's quite difficult when you've got a Premier League manager sort of pushing back on you like that. It did make me laugh that when Patrick Davison says that he thinks Sarr's challenge on Moise Sakai said it was a foul, Postakoglu's almost...

It did make me chuckle in a way that he just... Pottercogley just thinks everything's going against him sometimes. I sort of respect the fact that Patrick Davidson didn't say... Because it would have been the easy option in that moment to say to the manager, oh, yeah, you're right, you know, you've been harshly done by the decision and just...

Posakoglu's just fury in that moment. He just couldn't see past the fact that actually maybe Sarr had committed a foul in the build-up. It's also not a great look to get into a back-and-forth with a reporter. It's also not the first time or the second or the third time that this has happened this season. When Posakoglu talks about an agenda or he feels like there's an agenda against him, there's not. It's just that sometimes I think he becomes so irritated after a defeat, he ends up tying himself in knots

maybe needs to take a breather before he does some of those post-match press conferences because he just ends up saying things that make the situation ten times worse. Those immediate post-match press conferences like the one Patrick was doing, they are very difficult. Whether it's players or managers, you've still got the...

the sweat is still dripping down your face and all the rest of it. So Jack, you were in the post-match press conference where he had a chance to take a deep breath, sit down in front of the group. What was that like? Well, he wasn't as kind of on edge as I thought he was in his TV interview. I thought his TV interview was quite strange, but he was clearly not really enjoying it, I don't think. But then when he came into the press conference room, I thought he seemed more relaxed. He did repeat his

His argument that he hadn't... That the ear cupping was no attempt to belittle the fans. It was just to encourage them to celebrate more and...

and so on, which, like I said, I don't think many people in the room agreed, you know, really bought, but that was what he said. And then he went on, he talked a lot about VAR, but yeah, he was okay. I think he gets a bit more, I think he feels a bit more sort of with his back to the wall if he's doing like that immediate post-match TV interview about, you know, which is usually, I don't know, five, 10 minutes after the final whistle and,

down in the tunnel area. But by the time of the press conference, he was a little bit more relaxed. He is talking this morning after we've recorded this and Elias is going, and I'm sure he'll drop us a voice note, but it will be interesting to see if he just sort of doubles down because that will be the main focus of the press conference today. He's going to get asked about it constantly.

So it will be interesting to see how he deals with that. My point I was going to make about this, and I made it about the players, so I think it's only fair to make it about the manager as well. When I talked about Romero, when he gets on international duty and he gets the Argentinian press corps around him and suddenly, yeah, I think I could win the Champions League with Atletico Madrid or whatever, Cobblers, he's talking at that given time. There is a strange thing with Posto Coglu, and I keep an eye on it, and that is he is such a hero in Australia that,

that, you know, and he did great with the Australian national team and he is the most high-profile Australian manager, help me, ever. If ever he wants confirmation that he's doing great and we don't understand it, it's the Australian press. And it was noticeable to me

to join the international break. He had a big interview with Mark Schwarzer, who, of course, they knew each other from the Australian national team and all the rest of it, where once again, the tone seemed to be, we're in a tough time, I'm doing great, you're doing great, Gov, you're doing great, boss, and don't mind these nitpickers with their keyboards and their loud voices at away games. So it is odd, the little...

mismatch between what goes on this program on this podcast now I have no idea whether this stuff gets back to Andrew Postacoglu just to just to note that if you follow the Australian press if he only wants to read about how great he is then that's the place to do it I do find it quite remarkable that he said he got the start of the season wrong and when he was asked to elaborate on this in Wednesday's press conference he

He was talking about how they sort of underestimated the demands of Europa League and the two extra games in the Europa League, of going on a deep cup run in the Carabao Cup. He spoke about maybe tailoring pre-season to individual needs. And the example I will give you is Romero, who...

according to a report by FIFPro on player workload, travelled the most in the 23-24 season. So I think it was 163,000 kilometres over 211 hours. He wins the Copa America final. He's back for pre-season training at Spurs within three weeks. He starts the first 11 Premier League games of the season. Why would you not slowly reintegrate him? But to me, as I said, it was just remarkable that that wasn't common sense at the time, that you should...

deal with certain players slightly differently in order to have them for the entire season. So on the one hand, you say, okay, fair enough, that's a manager who's looked back and is reflecting and possibly learning from his mistakes. But the other hand, the other part of it is, surely the coaching staff, post-coagulant medical staff should have known that anyways, that playing twice a week is demanding and you've got to manage and rotate players better. And this is something that

We in here in particular have said for ages, I remember saying months ago, there's a question mark over how good Dragerson is, but Dragerson should have played more at the start of the season. Spence should have played more at the start of the season. And Postakoglu has become irate with some of his criticism and Mr. Hindsight, etc. But now he's basically admitting that he was wrong. And I'm not saying that we were right, but others made those fair points. It's just...

Yeah, because you mentioned it, I just have to bring it up. No, no, and that's fair because it is fair to say that we are now scrutinising everything that comes out of his mouth with a jeweller's eyepiece in a way perhaps we wouldn't do if the team was seventh and we were more concerned with the matches and the upcoming games. But we are where we are. It is clear that he's going to, it's pretty clear to me, he's going to stay till the end of the season at least. So we have to deal with what's in front of us and

It's so odd, isn't it, Jack, that the shadow of possibly winning the Europa League and qualifying for the Champions League, and football is so mad that I hope that's what happens, we're almost soft-peddling on some of this stuff because he's not going anywhere, at least not in the foreseeable future. It's very strange, but I feel like that...

Every time I watch Tottenham at the moment, that ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao seems a bit more of a mirage. It seems further away. I'd love to be on there with thousands of Spurs fans, but my optimism is receding, to put it mildly. Yeah, we may be all sat in Kelly Castle watching the game between Athletic Bilbao and Lazio on the big TV. It could be a good game. Oh yeah, it might be a good game. Who cares, as they say.

Listen, let's take another break. When we come back, we'll round up everything else that's been going on. God, the financial figures were a huge story seven days ago. The thing is moving at such speed now, light speed, warp speed, that doesn't seem even worth doing now. We will look forward to the game against Southampton. Jack's got something to say about that. That's next here on The View from the Lane.

Roll ball or Lonzo ball for buzz balls. Ready to go cocktails. Take 12. Buzz balls just dropped their biggest blue balls. Script says Biggie's blue balls, Lonzo. Take 13. Blue balls just dropped their biggest buzz balls. Let's try a vocal exercise. Buzz balls, Biggie's blue balls. Buzz balls, Biggie's blue balls. Big balls just dropped. Get blue balls this season now.

Welcome back to The View from the Lane, everybody. It is the nature of football. It's the nature of life indeed. No matter what's happened, the next thing is coming pretty fast down the pipeline. Spurs have got a game coming up. But in the meanwhile, in the way of this podcast, Jay is waving at me like a child in a school classroom desperate to get some point across. Jay? Well, I...

I nearly forgot to bring this up when we were talking about the game last night. The strange case of Matisse Tell and what happens with him and his long-term future. Because he's now been an unused substitute in two of Tottenham's last four games. Came on last night with three minutes of...

regular time to go which somehow ended up being 12 minutes of added time I'm torn between wondering whether this is a 19 year old player in a new country in a new team an underperforming team new culture slowly adapting to that environment and that Spurs should sign him permanently in the summer and give him that comfort and hope that he kicks on and fulfills his vast potential or whether this is just something which is

not working out and Spurs need to avoid spending all of that money on him in the summer and locking themselves into a player who might not be the perfect fit for this team. I just think it's quite damning that there have been some quite big games recently. You're 1-0 down against your bitter London rivals. In the end, you've given him 15 minutes to make a difference, but really, you've given him three minutes a

It tells me that Possacogli doesn't have much faith or confidence in Tell. And that's quite sad, really. Yeah, I think you've got to be very, very careful with this Tell thing. The fella may have unbelievable football skills, potential and all the rest of it, but we have to see some sign of it.

But equally, you've also, the complication there is, as you rightly say, it doesn't look like the manager has much faith in him. If the manager's not going to be there, he must have absolutely zero input into what Spurs do about their playing squad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's another element of it as well. You know, who knows what's going to happen over the next couple of months?

a different manager in a different system and Tell might look like a completely different player and he might be essential to whatever project is going on at Spurs. But just at the moment, I do just feel for him a little bit. He's gone away from a Bayern team that,

that was at the top of the league. He was coming on in the final half an hour of games and scoring goals against Hoffenheim and Paderborn or whoever it was. And now he's being asked to make a difference in an underperforming Spurs team. And when Solanke was injured, he was basically thrown into the deep end against Liverpool and Aston Villa in those two cup games. And

you know, asked to go up against Van Dijk and Canate. And then since then, he's barely been seen. Yeah. I think you've got to be careful that you don't go from one extreme where you, you pay Werner a load of money, even though he may be a shot bolt in professional football at that level to paying a load of money for somebody who just because of their potential, it is a huge one. Of course, I mean,

He does have some say in this himself, Tell. He doesn't have to sign for Spurs just because the two clubs have got some kind of agreement. And if you were Tell right now, would you stay at Spurs? I would, but I support him. Unless he supports Spurs, which I doubt. Would you, Jack? If I was Spurs, would I commit a big chunk of my summer salary? Or sort of my summer transfer spending on Tell? I'm not sure I would. But if you were Tell, would you want to stay?

I don't know what justification could be for saying yes to that. Which takes us then to another game of football. Jack, the game against Southampton, I know you've got something to say about it, but also, and it's very directly related to Iron Track Frankfurt on Thursday, are Spurs now in a position where it's a good thing they've got a game against Southampton, or is it a bad thing they've got a game against Southampton? A good thing, I think. I think it's better to have this kind of palate cleanser before...

Frankfurt next week I think that you know it's possible they've got a decent size chance of winning I guess and maybe they can get some confidence into some players who need it so yeah better to have I mean you know you couldn't really pick a better game for them I might regret saying that but yeah I think it's a good thing why won't you regret saying that well if I if I remember correctly Tottenham's record against the relegation zone teams at home this season is pretty bad

they found a way to lose at home to Ipswich Town.

And then they found a way to lose at home to like rude Van Nistelrooy's Leicester City, who are having, I think, one of the worst runs of any team in the top flight ever. I think you're right. Except for the fact they won at Tottenham. Am I right in thinking Leicester lost seven games in a row, beat Tottenham, and then have now lost seven games in a row since then? I hope you're wrong, but I think you're right. I think that is the case. Let's not beat around the bush. It's a disgrace. That's a blinking disgraceful thing for it to happen today. Why would it have to be Spurs, this Spurs...

I'm also here kind of dancing on a pin. We've talked about the breakdown. I'm going to go for it. We've talked about the breakdown of the relationship between the Spurs fans and the manager. Anybody want to talk to the issue of the Spurs players and the manager? I know this phrase about losing the dressing room. They don't seem to me to have, there's no consequence for losing these games. They don't seem to be,

breaking their necks, straining every nerve and sinew to win these football matches. That said, on an outside, I'm not on the pitch with them. I'm not in the training ground with them. I definitely think that the overall performance level in a lot of the recent games has been worryingly bad. I did think that the players were really on board with the ideas and enthusiastic apostolic ogle for a lot of this season. But I think that...

My mind on that is changing, having particularly the City home game, the Alkmaar away game, Bournemouth, Fulham and now Chelsea. The one argument the other direction is they were pretty good, Alkmaar at home, but then I do think they just want to win the Europa League. Of course they want to win the Europa League. And I think that we will see a bit of a spike from them against Frankfurt on Thursday. I don't know if it'll be good enough to win the game, but I do think they'll play better. But I think when the Europa League isn't at stake...

You see what their underlying motivational level is, and it's very low. Their normal performances in normal games recently is indicative of a real lack of focus, energy, drive, whatever. But it is interesting, isn't it, that Vicario, as the goalkeeper, just the same as it was with Hugo Lloris, he's the one who's allowed to come out after games and say...

we lacked energy because you could never say the goalkeeper hasn't run enough. So it's the goalkeeper among, among the playing staff who's allowed to come out and suggest that everybody needs to get their finger out and do a bit more effort. The one thing I will, I think I said it to you guys before we came on air, I will give credit to Madison and Vakaria for is that they did come out and talk afterwards and,

And, you know, Madison is always front and centre of any big Spurs victory. But fair play to him. He does front up when things are not going so well. I know Son always speaks to Korean media. But, you know, Son is the captain. Romero is the vice-captain. And I'm pretty certain we had this conversation a few months ago just about...

the leaders in a team, sort of the moment where you need to come out and say, this is what's going wrong. This is what we think about it. I know Vicario and Madison are part of the leadership group, but it shouldn't always be on them in those difficult moments. And going back to the infamous Jed Spence interview, when he says he's not too sure if he sees a leader on the pitch,

after last night. I know he maybe shouldn't have said it, but you can see where he's coming from. Yeah, I mean, Maddison appears to be a great blow cut. He's just struggling at the moment to impose himself on football matches in a team which doesn't give him the possession in the parts of the pitch where he is most effective. He is part of that 11. I'm not letting him off the hook in that way, but you're right. He does at least come out and say what some of us are thinking. We're very privileged here on the Views from Lane to have this player

this platform where we can say what we're thinking as i say last time i'm going to say it today i wish it was something was bringing some more positive news i guess we should end it there because the southampton game will look to look after itself jack's already pointed out spurs could be up for an amazing treble of defeats by teams in the in the relegation zone who came out the championship last year let's hope that doesn't happen i want to play well i don't believe in it you know but the

the confidence argument, I think it to me is, um, sometimes an illusion, but it would be better if they at least had some patterns of play established before they go into the first leg against Eintracht Frankfurt, which we all hope, absolutely hope that they win five nil and we can get, start getting out our route planners again and looking up the, uh, the best pizza, uh,

parlours in Bilbao. I hope that the next podcast on Monday will be more joyous. I'll try and make a promise that I will at least adorn it with, I'll try and tell you, I have to check with the lawyers first, the greatest joke I know, which involves a man who falls in love with a duck. But I will hope to do the duck joke, but I will have to run it past the athletics lawyers first, because it is...

Pretty angular in places, I think it's fair to say. That's all of it. I should tell you another show you shouldn't miss when you're finished with us. It's all about the underground world of fake football shirts. The Athletics' Adam Leventhal has spent nine months investigating fake shirts and uncovering some pretty shocking details along the way. Adam's investigation has taken him far and wide, USA, China, and beyond, finding out how these fake shirts can affect your health, your finances, and, of course, their links.

to criminal gangs. It's called the International World of Fake Football Shirts. It does what it says on the tin. You can hear the whole story over on the Athletic FC podcast right now. Thank you for listening. Thank you too for guiding me through. And it's very sweet of people who, they worry about me when Spurs lose in case I'm going to spontaneously combust. But losing at Chelsea, I must admit, it's one of those things I'm pretty used to. One win in the Premier League era. It is a standing up disgrace.

And there's no other word for it. And when Chelsea fans laugh, they've got evidence for so doing. Hopefully, though, we can only move forward into a brighter future. And I say that final in Bilbao. We'll see how they go on against Southampton. Thank you all for listening to View from the Lane. Come on, you Spurs. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.