Ange Postecoglou unique: Tottenham boss focusing on silverware in his second season in cost | Soccer Information

“Usually in my second season I win things.”

Ange Postecoglou’s phrases can be music to the ears of Tottenham followers, who’ve been starved of silverware for greater than 16 years.

The Australian’s hopes of profitable Spurs’ first trophy since 2008 seem to have been considerably heightened following the club-record signing of Dominic Solanke.

Monday nineteenth August 6:30pm


Kick off 8:00pm

His £65m arrival from Bournemouth lastly fills the Harry Kane void and offers Postecoglou the No 9 he sought to maneuver the staff ahead.

Talking solely to Sky Sports activities two days earlier than Solanke’s signing, Postecoglou was already in an optimistic temper forward of his second season in cost as he mentioned how his staff can enhance from their fifth-placed end, James Maddison’s kind and the summer time switch window…

What did you get from this pre-season?

“Positively a development within the gamers. Their understanding and their embracing of the best way we prepare and the best way we do issues. It was all very new to them final 12 months, it is honest to say. It was a reasonably drastic departure from what they’d been used to.

“Whenever you have that change, there’s always a little bit of uncertainty. They look more comfortable this year in embracing what we’re going to do and what we have been doing. Again, that’s good for me and the other coaches because it allows us to say we’ve now got to challenge them and ourselves to make sure what we’re delivering is at a bigger level than it was last year.”

How do you are feeling about your second season in cost?

“I guess I’m not the shiny new thing anymore, so there’s other new managers. People can go off and discover them and their childhood and not have to speak about mine anymore.

“Normally in my second season I win issues. That is the entire concept. First 12 months is about establishing rules and making a basis. Hopefully the second 12 months goes onto win issues. After all it is simpler mentioned than performed, notably within the Premier League and the competitors we’re in. That is at all times the best way I’ve checked out it, is that the second 12 months you ought to be able the place you may push on, relying on how the primary 12 months has gone.

“Last year we had some really good moments, obviously we had some tough moments. I think we learnt as much from the tough moments as we did from the good stuff and hopefully that means we’re in a good place. We’re definitely a better-prepared team than we were last year.”

What is the subsequent step for this staff?

“What we actually discovered final 12 months, and it was no shock, was that every time we had disruptions, whether or not that was accidents or suspensions, we lacked some self-discipline, we actually struggled to keep up the degrees of soccer that we established when everybody was up and operating.

“Invariably in any year you’re going to have some challenges. It’s about coping with that better. Having a better squad hopefully copes with that. A better understanding of, through that time, what we need to focus on. That means to me that we’re better prepared for the challenges that are always there.

“It does not matter which staff you might be or how you probably did final 12 months, each staff will go into this season figuring out there’s going to be a difficult interval for them. And hopefully with what we went by way of final 12 months, what we learnt and the event of gamers… as a result of we’re nonetheless a really younger group and a number of them it was their first 12 months within the Premier League or their first 12 months at Tottenham. If you’re taking a look at a benchmark I believe most of them left a fairly first rate one final 12 months, so if we will enhance on that that may put us in a fairly good area.”

Which specific aspects do you think need some polishing?

“I believe in all points. The very first thing is, have I obtained a bunch of gamers who consider in what we’re making an attempt to do? I actually do consider that. That is the primary a part of any kind of course of. We have purchased into the best way we need to play as a result of it is difficult. You have to be courageous. You have obtained to have the ability to do issues a bit of bit otherwise, positionally, or in the best way we method video games. You have to have an open thoughts about that. The primary 12 months is about making an attempt to get folks to consider in that.

“Probably because we got off to such a great start, that there wasn’t too much resistance. The players bought into it, they enjoyed it and they wanted more of it. But now it’s about doing that on a more consistent basis and not allowing, whether that’s oppositions or outside influences, to take us off the road we’re on. I thought it happened too often last year where there was an opposition tactic, or something we did self-inflicted – whether that was a lack of discipline or we had injuries and we had to shuffle the team around. We didn’t stay as consistent in our approach. But I think for the most part, the players still tried to do what we wanted them to do. Hopefully we execute better.”

After James Maddison’s England omission for Euro 2024, did you’ve gotten an opportunity to talk to him about it?

“I haven’t had an extensive chat with him. But again, I think that’s part of a footballer’s journey. I’ve often said that I think sometimes we see things in such a linear sort of way where we think that everything is going to be great and it never is. You could be the greatest at something but there’s going to be challenges, there’s going to be stumbles along the way and it’s how you react to them, what you do about them. How you embrace the next challenge that comes along.

“For Madders I am positive he was enormously disillusioned in lacking out as a result of he’d been part of that staff that went on that journey. However he is nonetheless obtained loads of soccer in him and there is nonetheless challenges there for him. It is the way you cope with that. Do you sort of simply write it off or do you employ it as motivation shifting ahead? Do you employ it as perhaps a time of self-reflection to say, effectively, may I’ve performed something higher? If you’re trustworthy with your self and ask these questions, you would possibly discover that, no, really I am nonetheless on the suitable path. However you must try this and use that shifting ahead.

“He’s been great since we got back. His season last year kind of reflected ours. He was unbelievable when he was up and going and then he had injuries. It was a bit of a grind when he did get back and that was kind of us as a team, so hopefully the way we’ve learned as a team he’s learned about as an individual – because he’s a big part of our side. We’ve got a very young team and he’s one that has that experience, has that quality and one we’ll be looking for to guide us through it.”

How a lot do you depend on signings to visualise a brand new season?

“It’s an important part of the process and I think it comes back to what I’ve often said – part of recruiting is understanding you’re not recruiting footballers, you’re recruiting people. What kind of person are they? Why do they want to come to Tottenham? Are they ambitious? Do they have an open mind? Are they prepared to take on the enormous challenge of creating something special at the club that has that success? All these kinds of things, and hopefully the stuff that they’ve already identified so that when they come here they feel like it’s the right place for them.

“Hopefully they stroll right into a dressing room of like-minded people who all have that sort of mindset. That helps them then visualise what we’re making an attempt to construct. It is in all probability a better course of for guys, new gamers coming on this 12 months as a result of they stroll right into a dressing room and the fellows could have absolute readability and provides them absolute readability of what they’re all making an attempt to do. Whereas final 12 months it was extra about me making an attempt to create that atmosphere, me making an attempt to color these photos to everybody, not simply the gamers and employees, however everybody on the soccer membership.

“Hopefully this year, for the guys we’ve brought in so far, they walk into a dressing room and they can feel exactly what we’re trying to do.”

In technical phrases, what do you look particularly at in an attacking participant?

“Whether or not it is an attacking participant or any participant, what I believe folks have hopefully understood is that we now have an actual identification to how we play our soccer. You sort of know when Tottenham performs, we will have two wingers on the market, we will be very, superb at taking gamers on, being actually aggressive with their play, with the ability to press.

“If I’m looking for a left winger, they’re the kind of attributes that are pretty clear that we need to see in them because ultimately there’s fantastic footballers all over the world. You can pick any one of them and they’d be unbelievable, but I’ve got to see them in my team in the way we want to play. They’ve got to have those attributes.

“In a technique that makes the method simpler, nevertheless it’s additionally difficult as a result of it is a a lot smaller area that you are looking at. In as we speak’s market, it isn’t simple to get that squad of gamers when it is so aggressive. For me, whether or not that is an attacking participant or any participant, it is do I see them in our staff tomorrow with the attributes they’ve? Clearly we have to educate them and assist them by way of the method. Have they got these qualities that I see them taking part in in our staff? In the event that they tick that field, then that is an enormous a part of us saying, ‘Properly okay, I believe you will be match’.”

What are you able to say to these followers who’re anxious in the course of the summer time switch window? (Talking earlier than Spurs introduced the signings of Dominic Solanke and Wilson Odobert)

“I understand that anxiety because every transfer window is your only opportunity to improve your playing personnel and your squad.

“I prefer to suppose in each window to date we now have strengthened. Actually final 12 months we introduced in some incredible footballers. In January, we introduced in Radu Dragusin and Timo Werner. We have introduced in two younger guys – Archie Grey, who’s a incredible younger expertise, and Lucas (Bergvall) joins us, regardless that we signed him in January, however we nonetheless have work to do. There isn’t any doubt about that. That is the character of the switch market.

“For me, I have just as much anxiety because it’s the part of the year I have least control over. It would be great if I had total control over everything, including what other clubs did, but that doesn’t happen.

“I perceive the place the followers sit with it. My position inside that’s to attempt to keep calm, keep disciplined and make it possible for come the top of the window, which is a very powerful time, we have had one other optimistic window in that we have made our squad and our staff stronger.”