Should Spurs stick with Ange?
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The Athletic FC Podcast Network. Hello everybody and welcome once again to The View from the Lane, the multi-award winning podcast about Tottenham Hotspur from The Athletic. And joining me, your host Danny Kelly, our from The Athletic, James Moore and Jack Pitt-Brooke.

After the infamous game a year and a bit ago, I opened the podcast by saying, why always Chelsea? Why always fucking Chelsea? It's different this time because we're coming off of a mad run, but there is a part of me that wants to understand why it's always Chelsea who find new ways to flagellate the Spurs fans. There were shades of last season's game and the game itself

on Sunday at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. But there are a whole lot of new things as well. Let's get your overall thoughts. And I think, because we've spoken about it before we started the podcast, there's some disagreement on the brilliance of the game here. Let's start with Jack Pitbrook. Jack, you were there. You watched it. I think you loved it. Enjoyed it very much. I thought it was a very exciting game for maybe the first hour or so. It was so fast.

It was two teams with different styles. I thought that Tottenham's pressing for the first 35 minutes maybe was unbelievably good. They were so energetic and they kept rattling Chelsea into making mistakes. I thought Chelsea in possession, as long as the ball wasn't with Sanchez and Badia Chile, I thought Chelsea were very, very good with their own very established style.

Yeah, I just thought it was a very good game. The only kind of disappointment is that you could see, you could clearly see Tottenham flagging a bit even towards the end of the first half.

and I'm sure we'll come on to this, but I think even at the time, though, the chances that Sar and Solanke missed to make it 3-1 on about 35 minutes in, you kind of knew that they were going to be decisive. But as a spectacle, I thought it was a very good game. Well, I mean, I'm sure it was a good game. It seems like the watching public enjoyed it, and I'm sure Chelsea fans enjoyed it. But I wasn't so convinced it was a game of consistently high quality. That was my contention.

I thought there were a lot of mistakes from both teams. You know, credits to the Spurs players who turned Kukureya's slips into actual goals. What were your thoughts then, James? Were you sharing my fear that there's so much that can happen in these games and particularly with Chelsea? Or did you think, right, here we go, let's do this then? I mean, I thought it was incredible...

Looking at the clock after Kulisovsky scored and seeing it was only 11 minutes where it felt like so much had happened in that time that it must have been like 25 minutes at least into the game. And obviously the kind of scoring two seam thing is a massive cliche, especially with Spurs. But yeah, obviously in a game where you're expecting it to be incredibly open and incredibly frenetic, but being 2-0 up after 11 minutes probably means a lot less than it would do to a normal team in a normal game.

I mean, I thought Spurs played incredibly well in the first 15 minutes. But with that intensity that we now know, at the moment more than any other time, they're just not going to be able to maintain. And sure enough, probably even by the time Sancho scored on about 17 minutes, that intensity probably gone from the game even by then.

And that is quite a big issue because you can't kind of go out on the front foot without that energy on and off the ball for the remaining, what, 75 minutes of the game. And that clearly became quite a big issue as it unfolded. Unraveled is probably a better word there. I mean, you're right about intensity, and Jack, I'll get your view in a second. I was thinking about this a lot last evening. I can't remember a team that, you know,

based their entire game on intensity knowing they could keep it going for 90-95 minutes with the exception of Atletico Madrid about a decade ago but their intensity was all contained in one third of the pitch the third nearest their own goal

so that they weren't quite running themselves into the dirt. Look, it would be a brilliant look if Spurs could keep that going for 65, 75 minutes, have the result nailed down and then ease off. That's not what happened. Jack, given you've watched Spurs in the last few years,

look, they have a propensity to throw away leads. We know that. This was a record 11th time in the Premier League that has given away a two-goal lead and lost. Although I take no notes of that statistic in some ways because

They've been in the Premier League all the time, and because it's 11 times that of hundreds and hundreds of games, it's almost meaningless, except as a stick to beat Spurs with. Did you share my pessimism after 20 minutes? Let's say after Sancho scored, what did you feel about how the game was going? Well, I don't think the stat is meaningless, because in a sense, it's happened twice this season. It happened against Brighton two months ago. Yeah.

Obviously in the Brighton game Tottenham's collapse was more dramatic whereas yesterday it was more steady. But I think everybody in the stadium could tell. Consistent collapse. Yeah, consistent gradual collapse. I think everybody in the stadium could tell that after those two Tottenham goals at the start Chelsea grabbed control of the game. They grabbed control of possession. They were just the better. They were kind of significantly the better team I thought.

from, I don't know, midway through the first half. It's why it was so ominous that Sar and Solanke missed those chances because everybody knew, particularly after Sancho scored, but even before Sancho scored, you know that Tottenham would need a big margin in, they would need to rack up a big margin of goals in the time in the game in which they were ahead.

because they wouldn't be able to sustain it. Clearly, they're capable of brilliant football, but they are simply not physically able to do this repeatedly over 90 minutes, especially in a time of the season where they're playing twice a week and they've got players out. So yeah, I did think...

I did think that they would lose from fairly early in the game, I think. Why is that then? Is it just, Jack, the issue of sustaining the effort or... And I'm leading the witness here, I'm afraid. Is it that they are just so easy to play against? Maybe I was going to say now, but let's take it as a general over... We're talking about a team now that's lost seven games and we're still just barely turning on... Lulu hasn't even turned on the Christmas lights in your local high street. Are they...

Are they just too easy to play against? Well, I think it's kind of both things, really. So if they were physically able, the problem is that their approach to game management is basically we are going to play the same way throughout the whole game. That's how they manage games.

And sometimes it works. You know, they went to Man United, they scored a third goal. They went to Manchester City, they scored a third goal and a fourth goal. So at times it does work. But in those two games, Tottenham put up unbelievable physical stats, like two of the biggest, like...

total kilometres run through the whole team that we've seen in the Premier League this season. So if they're going to... The only way they can manage a game is to continue playing their way. And the only way they can do that is with unbelievable physical output. The problem is that if they can't generate that physical output, they can't manage the game because they don't do what say... Like people always compare Postacoglu and Guardiola, but Guardiola teams manage the game through, you know...

just passing the ball to each other basically, and having lots of men back to block against the counter attack and slowing the game down. But Pastor Coghlan doesn't manage the game like that at all. He manages the game by we're just going to continue to play our way. And if you don't have the legs, it all falls apart. This is what I've been banging on about for the last few weeks. I wrote something about this last week. If you don't have the legs to play this way for 90 minutes, the whole house of cards collapses. This is a style of play which is completely dependent on physical output.

And when it works, when the players can run, it's brilliant. When they can't run, it just doesn't work. You get picked off by better teams. And sadly, that's what we saw yesterday, not for the first time. They've taken one point from the last five games they've played after the Europa League game. That's amazing. It's nuts. Yeah. And actually, if you look at it, they've won more or less the rest of them in that time. I mean, I don't want to do a post-mortem on this season yet, but I think I really...

underestimated how hard it would be to play this style of football twice a week with this squad because clearly we can see now this squad is miles away from being able to play this style of football every twice a week every week which is what they need to do at the moment it just looks like they can't do it I was having this conversation with someone after the game yesterday so this is now

In the Premier League, and I need to word this right, you need to word this like a statistician, Spurs haven't started a Premier League season worse than this since 2008, the infamous two points to make games season. But there was another season when they had 20 points after 15 games, I think that was 1920.

So it's a long time since Spurs have started a Premier League season worse than this. If you can count the first 15 games as a start, given it's well over a third of a season. And that kind of got us under thinking, has there been a worse Spurs team slash squad than this in that time? I mean, that's not necessarily that big a statement because there have obviously been some very good teams with some very good players at the club in that time period. You think, no, that first team...

in 2008 had Modric and Bale in it even though they weren't at the level they later went on to be at and then you've got teams of Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen and whoever else in kind of the period in between so it's you know I don't think that's not that's not a massive statement necessarily but I think it probably is true I would argue that the I really don't think the squad in 14-15 is

wasn't very good, I think. Because it contained a lot of players who became very good players, but who at the start of the 14-15 season, I'm thinking particularly of Kane, Dier, Davis...

Even players like Vertonghen and Dembele who'd not been that good for Tottenham up to that point. Reputationally, maybe that may be right. But I think the reality of where that team was at that season in comparison to where this team was at this season. Well, it depends if you judge it from, are we talking about from August 2014 or are we talking like in hindsight in May 2015? By the end. Because by May 2015, that was an established really good team. But in August 2014, I think the squad looked pretty patchy. Yes, maybe that's fair.

Look, some of this I think is slightly, if I might be so bold, irrelevant or missing the point. I hear what you're saying, Jack, about how well Spurs can play. And I think you've written a piece about the ceiling. We'll get onto that in a little while. I'm finding this very hard to buy at the moment. And maybe that's to do with the results. But the results are, you know, how you judge football teams overall.

by in the end. And they're not playing football. They're playing part of football. They're playing foot or ball. I'm not sure which it is. Or the middle bit. They're playing oppa. You can't have a team that doesn't defend its goal, either by, as you say, Manchester City, Barcelona, defending the ball or defending their territory.

I don't know that this experiment, and it is an experiment, it's never been tried in the Premier League before, that you're just going to go all out, you know,

You remember my phrase from two or three years ago when we were in the middle of the defensive version of Spurs, I'd rather risk losing 3-2 in order to win the game 3-2. I stick by that. But we're not doing that at the moment. We are making it almost certain that in half the games we play, we will lose because we're only playing half of football. And it doesn't matter about the players to some extent.

because they're not being asked or if they are being asked and not carrying out the instructions to do either defending their goal or defending the ball. It's a, I think at the level that the Premier League has played at, it's a recipe for disaster. Um, I'm not saying it is a disaster. I'll save that for the next section. Um, but it's a recipe that I look just because no one's ever tried. It doesn't mean it won't work.

But there's a reason I suspect why no one's ever tried it because they thought it wouldn't work. And I think the other coaches think it won't work. And are playing accordingly against Spurs. I just don't really agree with that. No. There's only Man United, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. Five teams have conceded fewer goals than Tottenham in the Premier League this season. So it's not... The defensive record obviously is not disastrously bad.

It's not like they're not interested in defending. They just defend in a very, very unusual way. So I think that you're... I think that... And clearly it's not working at the moment. You know, I don't... I'm not going to sit here and say that I think this is all working brilliantly because clearly it's not. But I think you have to respect the fact that this is a way... Like, what he's trying to do is a way to defend, which is unusual. And it's not working at the moment. But we have seen that it can work. Like, there is some...

It's not as if he doesn't care about conceding goals at all. He's just got a way, which is not working at the moment, but we have seen work at points. It definitely can work in short periods. Undeniably, we've seen that more than once in the last 15, 16 months. They've looked incredible for spells, incredible in matches against good teams. Undeniably.

But can it work consistently over a prolonged period? Because you're not going to get anywhere. You're not going to qualify for the Champions League. You're not going to win a trophy, probably, if you can't do it for a prolonged period, the best part of a season.

I'm not really convinced it can with what they've got at the moment. I agree with that, yeah. You can say that he is committed to defend the goal properly, in which case, and I'm going to say something that's going to sound stupid, I don't care. That's what I'm here for.

In which case, exactly right, why didn't he substitute Christian Romero after he did that backheel in his own penalty area? I would have taken him off instanter, taken him off to show the rest of the team that we are not going to fuck about in our own penalty area. We're going to defend our goal. Now, the upshot of that is it sets a tone for the rest of the team that allows the dimwit basumer to make that tackle for the penalty. It allows the equally dimwitted basumer

Saar, to make that tackle for the penalty, it sets a tone. The senior defender at the club thinks he's going to do a semi-Kruyff turn. I don't want to sully the name of Johan Cruyff by calling it a Cruyff turn. In the early stages of a football match, seven yards from his own goal,

Now, what's gone on with that fellow, I don't know. He was my favorite player a year ago. Whether it's the attention from so-called bigger clubs in the Iberian Peninsula, I don't know what it is. Whether it's the pressure of a new child has just arrived, I don't understand that. So you can tell me more about that, Jack. I'd have taken him off that second to prove a point to the team. We didn't. We just carried on. And then we see Son doing a turn on the stroke of halftime that would have

been risky on the edge of their penalty area, never mind on the edge of our own, and people running into people for penalties because no one cares. No one cares. This is what we are. This is how we're going to defend. I think you've kind of unpicked your own point there a little bit because, I mean, I kind of agree with you about Romero and that seemed completely unnecessary in that moment.

Clearly, you know, there was that incident with Son that you mentioned. And then Kulishevsky, that thing I mentioned after the Roma game, where he tries to roll the defender on the edge of the box, like kind of showing him away from the ball so he can turn straight up the pitch. He did that again on the edge of his own box in this game and lost the ball again. Yeah, so... So you're not saying it's Christian Romero, you're saying it's wider. It's wider, is it? Well, it seems to be the case, isn't it? And I think that's been set by Christian Romero. I think that's been a thing that the players in this team have been doing

As standard. They have to take risks in the build-up, don't they? Like, that's how they get through the opposition press. You have to take the risk. You have to take a risk if you're going to get through the opposition pressure. They've all been like... I would blame... I would actually...

I think that ultimately this falls down to the responsibility of the manager because they all have to build up. They all have to keep the ball on the floor and keep it moving forward in their own half under opposition pressure. That's the whole point of what they're trying to do. They can't just hoof it. I mean, I don't know, doing it earlier in the game when you're winning or drawing 0-0, it's a tight game early in the game. It doesn't feel quite as egregious to me as when Kulosevsky was doing it

at the end of that Roman game when they're winning 2-1 and they're trying to see it out but this is kind of the point like and I think we're going to come on to this it's the need to kind of be a bit more a bit more pragmatic in certain moments. Beep beep beep you know that's the band word but you're absolutely right of course um which you want to do anyone wants to talk about the two penalties um I've said what I've said anyone want to talk about the two penalties because that you know

You can't blame... The argument with football men will be that you can't blame a manager when people just take it into their heads to do that sort of thing. But of course, somebody sets the tone for the team. But it was dim, both of them, weren't they? Just dim. Yeah, not great. I mean, Basuma's obviously...

in a bit of a panic having kind of messed up getting given the ball away right on the side of the pitch and then run right across and made a pretty rash challenge at least I know how I make amends at least yeah trying to make like a hero tackle at least you can kind of see why he was trying to make that challenge in that moment

But yeah, the Sarr one is just sort of clumsy, just completely unnecessary, making life incredibly easy for Palmer there. I mean, he's kind of going nowhere. Yeah, I can only hope that, you know, players learn from this. I mean, I've kind of seen it suggested that fatigue may have been a factor in decision making as well. The interesting thing was afterwards, Postacoglu pointed to particularly the Bissouma one.

and said it showed how desperate he was to turn things around. You know, he kind of almost, he obviously totally admitted it was a penalty and a mistake by Bissouma, but he said it pointed to how keen the players were. And I do think it's, if I was going to take one positive out of the game, it would be that

The players looked really, really committed for that first half an hour. They're clearly the players I don't think have given up on this. What a statement that is. For that first half an hour. It's not half of football. It's not Utba then. It's a third of football. It's Foo, is it?

They were really up for it for the first third of the game. No, I'm not saying they were up for it for the first third of the game. I'm saying they were up for it and physically capable of doing what they were meant to do for the first sort of 35 minutes. I think they got tired, but I thought you could... The fact is, the players are... I think the players are enjoying this. I think they're committed to it. I think they want it to work. I came away from yesterday thinking that it was less bad than the second half of the Bournemouth game, which I still think is the worst they've been this season.

At one point on that, I mean, if we think these tactics are complete nonsense and they're not going to realistically work in the right way for a sustained period,

Should it matter what the players think necessarily? - Well, I guess if you think there's no chance that it will work ever at all, it doesn't matter what the players think. - Well, I'm not saying there's no chance that it'll work ever at all. I'm saying there's maybe not a great chance that it'll work consistently enough. - I think the players are the best indication of whether or not something can work, frankly. 'Cause I think if the players check out, then it's over. And we've seen various Tottenham managers in the last few years never recover from the fact they lost the players.

but he has not lost the players. And I think that until he loses the players, you can get onto this, I think until he loses the players, I think there's still a hope that it can be turned around. Right, we'll come on to him and the players and all the rest of it in just a second. I think in the interest of justice to Spurs, and not to be too one-eyed about it, we should talk, I mean, the tackle by Bissouma was on Caicedo, who...

should not have been on the pitch. Is that fair? Do we understand why he wasn't red carded? I mean, on the basis of two challenges we saw punished by red cards at that stadium last season, including one in the equivalent game, you would say it was a red card. I mean, there is also the Kulizevsky...

elbow incident on La Vie en... Well, I was going to say, if we're going to be super fair, we'd have to mention that as well. I mean, it's not like a swung elbow, is it? It's more like an arm up in expectation, but it's not great, is it?

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We're in one of those runs at the moment, Spurs, despite the brilliant wins in Manchester, where questions start to get asked. It's how the world runs. The Premier League is competitive. Projects do not develop on their own. The other teams are in parallel and sometimes interacting with you, improving or failing in their own way as well. And so we always have to ask the question at this stage,

A year and not quite a year and a half. That's not fair, but a year and a good bit into his reign. Jack, you've written a piece for The Athletic, and I don't think there'll be some Spurs fans who will want to comment on your views that now is not the time to start operating the ejector seat for the manager.

Yeah, I just don't think... My opinion, basically, is that they should not sack him now. I know that there's an increasing view among some Spurs fans that he should be sacked. I think that...

even though clearly it's not working at the moment i think that there is there is more upside in keeping him than in getting rid of him because if you the upside in keeping him is the slim chance that this could be turned around like if tottenham can if tottenham can replicate their good days more often then they will be a good team i think that's pretty clear um

The upside in sacking him, I think is, I can't see it. I cannot see the upside in sacking him at the moment because I think there's nobody on the market really at all.

If they sack him, there's no, I don't think there's a strategy at the club apart from having Postacoglu as the manager and then signing some teenagers last year. There's no, I don't think there's any identity at the club apart from Postacoglu. And so if they sack him today, and I don't think they will, but you know, strange things have happened. If they sack him today, they'll wake up tomorrow with no manager, no strategy, no identity.

They'll have to either find a sort of unlikely free agent manager, or they'll have to go and negotiate with another Premier League club who would not be willing to part with their manager. And they would lose all the good bits of Postacoglu and then have to start again mid-season, which is really hard. So no, I don't think it would be the right call at all. And I don't think he should be sacked. I think they've got to

push on for a bit longer and then maybe see where they are in a few months' time. That's my view. James, presumably, if I might let Daylight in on Magic, you commissioned this piece by Jack and you've edited it. So I presume by allowing those words to be published, you agree with them? I mean, broadly, I agree. I don't think that sacking him now would make massive, tangible difference. But I do think if

this run continues over the rest of this month then it could start to feel quite different if they're you know i mean a couple of weeks ago after i think it was the ipswich game the defense was three points off third so no need to panic but now they're nine points off third i think and very quickly could be you know 15 points off if or whatever if they don't turn things around quickly

I do have scepticism about how likely this is to work and that isn't entirely down to Posto Coghly, that is down to how likely it is that this club provides him with the players that he's going to need to do this consistently. Because it is obvious that they need two players in every position basically and it is also obvious that he doesn't trust more than about 14 players in his squad. And I don't think that's an exaggeration, that probably is about right, isn't it? So...

unless they go out and sign another defender another attacking player possibly another midfielder in January and left back another goalkeeper I mean whatever well all the things we said they should sign in the last week of the transfer window right I can kind of see the kind of boom and bust cycle continuing for the remainder of the season which actually compared to what we're in at the moment which is all bust all the time um

No comments on your search history there, Danny. Are you monitoring my computer again?

That joke was below even this podcast. Yeah, of course. I'd just be sceptical that it's going to improve vastly before the summer because I just don't think they'll do much in January. And we talked so much in the early weeks, months of the season about how the priority could and should be to try and win the Europa League. But as it is now, I have relatively little faith they're going to be able to do that.

because they're just so inconsistent that you could see them losing a game against, I don't know, I don't think Lyon are in it, but you know what I mean? Someone of that kind of... You know, some sort of decent but not elite European team going away and losing 4-0 and that's that. It could just kind of slip away from them so easily. So, yeah, I'm not at all positive about the remainder of the season, but also I don't think that changing the manager is going to solve many of the problems. I think the problems at the club...

stem from recruitment and ambition possibly from higher up. I mean, it does seem like there's been a lot of talk about rebuilds and new philosophies and going in a different direction and whatever else, but I just don't think they've... They haven't followed through on that. They haven't followed through, no. I don't really think they've put things in place to enable the managers to do that. Not yet, at least. I think that's one of the strongest arguments for keeping him is that...

If they sack him, it would just show to the world that Tottenham have got no stomach for a rebuild or any turbulence. Or they've got no, they can't handle a few pretty bad results. They would look as if they were both incredibly impatient for consistency, let's say. Not success, because they don't think they're set up to win things. But they would look like, well, we've got to be fourth all the time.

But we're not going to provide the players to do that. We're not going to build a squad that can really compete with Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City. So I think if they got rid of him, it would just show they don't really know what they want. Rather, they might have ideas about what they want, but they're not really able to deliver on any of it. And I think that would send such a bad...

about what Tottenham were trying to do, really, if anything. Look, if I sack him now, they're saying, we think we're an elite club. The idea that we could be 11th after 15 games is a disgrace and it shouldn't be the case. But then they have to basically stung up the cash to build a squad that can compete with all those other teams and to play twice a week and whatever else. You make a good point, James, because...

What I'm going to say next about the manager and coming or going, it sounds like you're talking about a club who is perhaps two years up from the championship and trying to establish themselves in the Premier League. We are talking about, and I hate to refer to football clubs in these matters, depending on which matrix you use, the ninth or tenth richest club in the world. There are

financial experts who will say that they're even in a stronger position of that because of the way the transfer headroom has been placed. We're not talking about a team that's hoping to stay in the Premier League one day challenge for Europe. Listen, if you were judging this on the results after six to 15 months of the manager being in charge, you would say he deserves to be sacked.

You talk about the fourth best defensive record in the Premier League. I point you to more defeats than any other team who's not currently in the relegation places. Since the Chelsea game of last season, they have now won and lost exactly the same number of games in the Premier League. They are mid-table mediocrity by a long-term measure. In the last 22 home games, they've kept one clean sheet. That is a benchmark for failure. You're not going to succeed like that.

Um, look, so all of those things tell you that in a normal club at a normal time using normal measures, he would be either under terrible pressure or have been shown the door by now. Um, but Spurs aren't that club, are they? And I, I hear your arguments, Jack, and I hear your arguments, James. Um,

His points per game since the Chelsea game a year ago is way short of what you're required to get into the top six. I cannot convince you that there will be more good days, more regular good days ahead. But I think it's worth paying the price to find out, basically. I think that it's worth buying a ticket because if you don't,

then I just think you're nowhere. Like Tottenham are nowhere if they sack him. Then it's a mid-season relaunch, which is the hardest thing to do. I know they tried it with Conte, but with Conte they had a peak Kane, they had a peak Son, they had one of the best managers in the world coming straight in. And you know, let's not get it wrong, it was amazing for six months. They were really, really good for that first two-thirds of a season under Conte. But I think those are really the only...

unless that I guess is a rare example of a mid-season relaunch kind of working in the short term but like otherwise I mean I know people are saying Klopp came in a mid-season Arteta came in mid-season which is true but

you know, they were then given a huge amount of time to try and sort things out. And it took them a long time to sort out. And so if Spurs sack him now, I don't see what option they've got other than, oh, we'll just get a famous manager in again and we'll hopefully be really good in six months' time. But they've done that and it doesn't work.

What do you think Pastor Cogglou thinks about all this in his heart? It's hard to know because none of us can see right deep, except James, but into my black, black, flinty heart. None of us can see into other human beings' hearts completely.

After the game, he said how well he thought Spurs played. I thought that was ludicrous, but I was generous enough to think in my mind, well, of course, he's got to say something to support the players. They scored three goals against what is currently the second best team in England, both by eye test and the league table tells you the same thing.

but they conceded four at home. And to me, they looked like whatever Spurs, if Spurs got six, I think they might have conceded seven the way the game was going. Just let me ask you the question. I'll ask it to you, James. Do you think he believes in his heart of hearts that this is going well? Oh, no, sorry. That's not right. That this will go well eventually?

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know. His body language and kind of demeanour on the touchline. I mean, Jack will know better than me because obviously he's been kind of behind the dugouts at matches generally. But it has seemed he's been far more animated and agitated in games over the last few weeks than he was at any point in the first couple of months or this season or last season. We were often talking about how it was quite frustrating that he basically stood there with his hand in his pocket, not really reacting to anything. So, I mean, I suppose...

That could kind of go either way, I suppose. You could take that as a positive or a negative sign. What struck me was that decision to play the two centre-backs yesterday, Van de Ven and Romero. I mean, I think Romero's injury was a different injury. And I think he... Postacogli kind of contested that that was unrelated to the previous injury. But we all know...

When players come back from injuries and they're not feeling entirely right, they do kind of overcompensate with movements. I'm not saying that necessarily is what's happened here, but maybe it is. I mean, look, to me, I'm not saying it was a mistake to play those two players necessarily. We'll see how bad those injuries are. But it felt like a gamble that he maybe wouldn't have taken in the past. Like he's always felt quite like, kind of quite headstrong about

and assured and to me it kind of felt like he wouldn't rush a player back into the team that was always one of the things we'd kind of hear about him and he would kind of back the players that were kind of deputising

Which would have been a drag us in and you, I think we decided in this instance, Danny. I couldn't have done any worse than Christian. Would you have lasted 15 minutes? I'd have taken up enough of the pitch to at least have more effect on the game. And I wouldn't have done a Cruyff turn on the edge of my own six yard box. In fact, I would have done a Cruyff turn anyway because I couldn't with my knee. But go on. The point is, my point is, the fact that those two players were seemingly at least half rushed into the team.

did make me think maybe he was feeling it a little bit, at least a little bit. It's worth saying, as Apostolokouli said afterwards, that he didn't think it was a gamble, and he said that Romero's quad injury was unrelated to the toe injury, which he previously picked up, and that effectively the muscle injury he got yesterday was an injury he could have got at any time. Whereas with Van de Ven, he said that it was always the plan to take him off after 60, 70 minutes, and he just felt some tightness. So that's his view. I guess my view is that...

a really if he was really really confident he wouldn't have he would he he would probably take more time over it that's my that's my guess i mean although that said postacoglu did say afterwards he doesn't have a lot of options you know the fact is dragasin and davis been playing there recently dragas davis went off with a with a muscle injury against bournemouth on thursday and so maybe he just felt you know maybe he felt he needed them so much the players really wanted to play

I mean, in terms of how Postacoglu is himself at the moment, I mean, he looked pretty down in the press conference yesterday. And he wasn't trying to bluster his way through it at all. I think he said at one point, every time we have seemed like we are on solid footing, something has come along which will become an impediment for us to do that. It's just the way our season has gone so far. Yeah.

And he just sounded, I think he sounded very accepting of how bad things are at the moment. I think this week will have taken a lot out of him. You know, going to Brighton, sorry, going to Bournemouth on Thursday, getting hammered by the away end, having to suck it up, having to do media straight afterwards, then press conference on Friday, and then everybody gets up for this big game on Sunday, and they start brilliantly, and then losing that painfully as well. I mean, he didn't, as far as I could tell, he didn't get any

The crowd were pretty much behind him, I thought yesterday. I didn't hear, you know, his name was actually sung quite a bit in the second half, I thought. But yeah, I think this will have taken a lot out of him. And I think he will, I mean, of course, he will know that he's in a pretty sticky situation right now.

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Yeah, welcome back to The View from the Lane. And so Thursday, they play Rangers. I mean, it is both joy and pain that you have to, you can't just settle in the middle of an English season and try and fix what's wrong. But that's, you know, that's increasingly the way for professional football as we saw the draw for the World Club Cup.

whatever they're calling it, in the United States on Friday, which is going to mean that most of the senior players, unless FIFA Pro do something about it, are going to go two years without more than a fortnight without supposedly competitive games being played. Rangers are better, by and large, in Europe than they have been in the Scottish Premiership. And it's a game that Spurs probably need to go and get something from, Jack. Is that right? In a sense of like...

It depends what your criterion is, really. In the sense of finishing in the top eight in the Europa League and avoiding the punishment round, which I think is very, very, very important, I really think they should win. I think the fact is, after the combination of the Galatasaray defeat and the Roma draw, I think it would be great if they could win this game. Because I think they'll probably need to win two of their last three. So if they win this one, it takes a bit of pressure off January.

But there's another question here, which is probably more immediate than do they come at top eight in the in the Europa League League phase? Sorry. And that is Pocicoglu. And I think from Pocicoglu's point of view, I think it's I think it'd be bad if they lost. But I think it'd be much worse if they lost the Saints. I think if they lose the Saints on Sunday, then things will get very tough. So I would say he should pick a team with that. My opinion is he should pick a team with Saints in mind.

Obviously, Benton Kerr will come in. I imagine Gray will come in. Bergval, who's actually looked maybe a bit better recently. I bring Bergval in, Werner in. Maddison obviously didn't start yesterday, so Maddison can come in. But as much as I, as important as the Europa League league phase is to me, I think that, I think the Saints on Sunday is so, so big. You agree, James? One game at a time or does he need to focus on that game with Southampton? I do think he has to think on that, but I just have more than one eye on that probably. I

I know that's completely at odds with what we've said previously about the Europa League and how and why that should be a focus. But as we saw in that Roma game, you can play a very strong team with the intention of getting the job done and seeing it out and then end up dropping points and then having to rest players in the following league games. So it is a pretty big gamble because if I lose that game and other results don't go their way, they could end up being adrift about top eight, which I know isn't necessarily the be all and end all. I imagine they want to avoid those extra matches.

So, yeah, I think throwing that game, which I know we're not really saying they do, but deprioritising that game is increasing the chances of that extra game later or two extra games later in the season by a significant amount. So that's the trade-off. So the answer really is focus on Southampton and sign players in January.

Who won't be able to play against, is it Elfsborg and Halfenheim? But will be able to play in the playoff round, assuming they're in there. I think everything, it feels a bit moot now because, frankly, who knows if Poster Coghlan is going to be the manager in February. But given everything that we've said about fixture pile-up and this squad cannot play twice a week...

If I were thinking clearly about it, they really cannot go into that punishment round. They have to go straight into the knockouts, into the proper knockouts. They should really be... I mean, they're definitely in one of the best eight... Well, maybe they're not, but they should be one of the best eight teams in the Europa League. And so it would be... And given how well they started the tournament, I really think they should be focusing on that. But...

Yeah, I mean, Saints have got five points from 15 games. They're tracking to finish. I mean, they're going to be roughly around the famous Derby counting points total. Tottenham cannot not win that game, as far as I'm concerned. All right, listen, I think we've, a bit like Spurs, I think we've exhausted ourselves there in the first hour of the podcast. Big issues, very strange and...

and yet not strange defeat. They have to get up and in the language of footballers go again. We'll be going again on Friday after the game in Glasgow. We'll see what happens then because now at the moment, such as Spurs' form, we are judging everything on a game-by-game basis. Not the right way to do it,

but it's what the situation is currently forcing us into. Thanks to James and thanks to Jack. Thank you all for listening. And remember that you can get in touch with us on Xstroke Twitter and on Blue Sky at VFTL podcast. Or you can email us at vftl at theathletic.com. And all the best coverage of Spurs, deep, wide, funny, and brilliant is in The Athletic. Come on, you Spurs. ♪

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