Ange postecoglou’destroyed’ one of his Tottenham players for swapping shirts with a west ham opponent in the wake of a win, according to Jamie O Hara.
Ange Postecoglou has been praised by the TNT Sports panel for making a “big” decision involving James Maddison during Tottenham Hotspur’s 4-1 victory over West Ham United on Saturday.
West Ham opened the scoring in the opening 20 minutes with Mohammed Kudus striking the visitors ahead in north London – but his goal was cancelled out by Dejan Kulusevski’s scrappy equaliser before the break.
The momentum stuck with Spurs in the second half, as it was the hosts who dealt the hammer blow to claim all three points, following a flurry of quickfire goals through Yves Bissouma, Heung-min Son and an own goal from Alphonse Areola.
Ange lost it at one player
“This was the first best winning game Tottenham have played this season and the moment I how big it was was in the changing room
“Player walked in and the manager shut the door. It was quiet and then all of a sudden he just erupted.
“Destiny udogie, who was the cost of Tottenham goal, walked in with a hammers shirt in his hand and I remember ange postecoglou just absolutely unloaded on him.
“He destroyed him, saying: ‘If I ever see any of you walking with a west ham shirt ever again you’ll never play for this club.’
“That’s how he was, he was just mad. That’s when I sat there and thought: ‘This is a big game, isn’t it?’
“I didn’t realise before that game and ever since then, whether you win more or less, I knew that week leading up to a big game was all or nothing.”
Also there has been a great talk on ange loss to Nottm forest early this month
There’s been a lot of fan reaction to Ange Postecoglou’s reactions to the press after Tottenham Hotspur’s 1-0 loss at home to Arsenal in the first North London Derby of the season. Ange was asked by a Sky Sports reporter after the match about his record of winning titles and trophies in his second season with a club, but kept pulling the microphone away from Ange before he had a chance to speak. This clearly irritated the Spurs boss, and he responded rather tetchily to the exchange.
“Am I going to answer the question or are you going to keep asking it? Absolutely and I’ll correct myself, I don’t usually win things, I always win things in my second year, nothing’s changed.
“Well I’ve just said it now. I don’t say things unless I believe them.”
Strangely, fans have taken this statement as Ange making a guarantee that Tottenham will win silverware this season, and using it as something like a rhetorical cudgel now that Spurs have taken just four points from its first four matches of the season.
I disagree with this framing, and here’s why. First, Ange is correct about winning things in his second year at a club — up to this point, he always has. That’s not a prediction, that’s history. Postecoglou is also a person with an enormous amount of self-belief in his system, his tactics, and his ability as a manager to get the best out of his players.
But that’s not the same thing as a guarantee. For starters, what else is he going to say in this situation? He’s fresh off a disappointing loss to the second-best team in the league who also happens to be Spurs’ biggest rivals, and he’s dealing with a reporter that’s annoying him immediately after the match. I’d be grumpy about that too. He’s making a bold statement, but it’s less about what Spurs are going to do and more about what he has accomplished at every step of his coaching career up to this point. His record is right there, he’s just pointing to it.
Now, is he setting expectations too high? I suppose you can argue that, if you’re a pessimist. But Ange is not guaranteeing Spurs are going to win a domestic Cup or the Europa League or even the Premier League title, he’s continuing to do what he’s always done — set conditions of belief for himself and his players to accomplish what nobody else thinks can be accomplished. Likewise, he’s not going to tell a reporter — or anyone else — that fans shouldn’t expect Spurs to win something this season. Imagine the reaction if he were to say that!
