Premier League football: Ange Postecoglou on Spurs’ ambition

Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou: "It’s not important what people say about you, it’s how you respond to it." Photo / Photosport

Ange Postecoglou has not experienced anything at Tottenham which has “curtailed” his ambition to bring sustained success to the Premier League club.

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is under the microscope again after a controversial excerpt in the autobiography of former captain Hugo Lloris.

Tottenham have failed to win a trophy since 2008 but five years ago made the Champions League final, and Lloris revealed a gesture that made him question Levy’s desire to win.

Levy arranged via a club sponsor for the whole squad to receive a watch with the engraving of “Champions League finalist” days before the subsequent 2-0 loss to Liverpool in Madrid.

However, Postecoglou rejected suggestions there is not a will to succeed at the club.

“I’ve said in my own life, people will often talk about experiences they’ve had and shared with me and I’ve got a totally different view on it than they have,” he said.

“I haven’t read it, so I don’t want to take it out of context. Hugo is talking about his own experience, but is that the experience of everyone? I am sure Daniel had a different view on it.

“I think when something doesn’t work it is very easy to in a post-mortem look for reasons why. I think it is bigger than that but it would have been a very different story – because it was a pretty tight final as well – if it had gone the other way.

“My dealings with Daniel and anyone at the club, I haven’t changed from the moment I took on this task. I know the ambitions I have for this football club and there has been nothing here that I feel has curtailed me trying to achieve what I want to.

“A lot of that is in my own power and the rest of it is to get people along for the ride and hopefully get them to believe in what we’re trying to do.”

League Cup triumphs in 2008 and 1999 represent the club’s only trophy wins during the past three decades.

The drought has increased impatience among the fanbase, but Postecoglou has been consistent in his messaging that one cup victory will not guarantee long-term success.

Speaking ahead of the overnight Premier League home fixture with Ipswich, the 59-year-old reiterated: “I’ve always said, I don’t see just a trophy as the panacea for sustained success because there is plenty of evidence that is not the case. Not here, just sport in general.

“I get the fact when you’re at a club this size and it hasn’t won, people think ‘Well that is the missing piece’.

“What I have been trying to rail against since I’ve been here is there is never just a missing piece. It is always more than that. It’s about having a clear idea over what you’re going to build, how you’re going to build it, and staying true to that.

“I think I said last week the biggest part of that is it’s not important what people say about you, it’s how you respond to it.

“I could be going, ‘Let’s just win a trophy this year, everything will be fine’, but I win a trophy, we finish 10th and five games into next year I get sacked. Not that it’s about me but then the club has to change direction again so have you really done anything? I don’t think so.”