Ange says the ‘football gods’ won’t save him, but he still has a pulse at Spurs

There’s no getting away from it: it’s been an awful season. They’re 14th in the Premier League with 16 defeats in 31 games so far, the most they’ve suffered in a single campaign for more than two decades.

Angeball is not dead. Not yet. Worst-case scenario, this project has exactly one week to live, assuming we believe the talk that Postecoglou’s future in North London depends entirely upon winning the Europa League.

The English media might be openly speculating about Ange Postecoglou’s replacement, and it might be that at least half of the Tottenham Hotspur fanbase is counting down the seconds until the club posts a generic social media graphic and the words ‘Club Statement: Ange Postecoglou’ on its official channels, and there might be a priest in the room, holding a bible, ready to go - but there is still a pulse.

Injuries explain it - at one stage they were missing a dozen key first-team players, and had zero centre-backs available for weeks on end - but only to a point. All their big stars have returned over the past few weeks, but they have generally stunk it up. Patience has run out, and something resembling psychological warfare has broken out between the manager and the supporters.

There have been shades of 2017 about Postecoglou’s prickly demeanour of late. That was his last year with the Socceroos, when he walked out on the Australian game just six months before the World Cup, having realised he alone couldn’t ‘fix’ it. He admitted he had become worn down and didn’t like who he’d become.

Ange Postecoglou - celebrating, not praying. Credit: Getty Images

It’s a bit similar now. He doesn’t look happy. His contempt for certain journalists in the Spurs press pack is no longer concealed, and he can’t help but snap back at the fans who taunt him during and after games. Last week, after the away fans at Chelsea chanted “You don’t know what you’re doing” when he took off Lucas Bergvall for Pape Matar Sarr, he cupped his ears in their general direction when Sarr scored shortly afterwards. The goal was then disallowed. He tried to explain later that he just wanted to hear the fans supporting the team, but nobody believed him.

It was, as they say, Spursy behaviour. He’s supposed to be the antidote, but it’s infecting him.

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