When Ange Postecoglou starts working with the Tottenham Hotspur players next month, the first thing he will evaluate is their bravery. Have they got the nerve to keep doing what is asked of them, even if it means making mistakes along the way? And, trusting that Postecoglou will get them fit enough, are they selfless enough to run all day for the shirt?
Only after those considerations does it become about your technical ability for Postecoglou, and his preference for press-resistant players who are comfortable receiving a pass in tight spaces. However, even that links back to the bravery point, since it takes a degree of courage to demand the ball with opposition players around you, knowing the cost of losing possession could be huge.
Tactically, Postecoglou is most commonly associated with a 4-3-3, which is the system he played in more than 80 per cent of his matches over the past two seasons as manager of Scottish giants Celtic.
He has been flexible throughout his career, though, and played with different formations in different jobs.
At Melbourne Victory in 2012-13, he moved away from the conventional No 9 he had used in his previous three years at Brisbane Roar and instead set his teams up in a 4-2-2-2, with two wingers attacking the spaces between the opposition full-backs and centre-backs, and two false nines. Then, as Australia coach, he switched to a back three midway through the 2018 World Cup qualification campaign — albeit in a way that was so attacking it can be considered a very distant relative of the 3-4-3 Antonio Conte used while he was his Tottenham predecessor.
As one regular Postecoglou watcher put it to me this week: “There’s more chance of the sun rising in the west than him playing a Conte-style three at the back.”
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In the second leg of the final Asian play-off for World Cup 2018 at home to Syria, for instance, Australia played with essentially three No 10s ahead of one lone defensive midfielder and behind a striker. With the tie level at 1-1 after the first leg five days earlier, the back three were asked to cover the width of the pitch, and an early injury-enforced substitution saw Robbie Kruse (a Bayer Leverkusen team-mate of Son Heung-min, incidentally) play basically as a winger despite nominally being positioned as a wing-back.
It was in effect a 3-5-1-1, and led to a lot of criticism over how attacking it was. We’re unlikely to see it at Tottenham, but the point is Postecoglou is not wedded to one formation. That said, given his preference for a 4-3-3 at Celtic, the expectation is he will at least start with something similar in north London.
Looking at how Celtic, and other teams of his have functioned, we can start to get a sense of who, among the current Tottenham squad, seem like natural fits (or otherwise) for Postecoglou’s way of playing.
Goalkeeper
A Postecoglou goalkeeper needs to be good with their feet. He wants his teams to dominate possession and play out from the back, ideally with a keeper who is good enough to play well off his line and almost operate as a third centre-back. They should also play with a high starting position, ready to sweep up opposition attacks and allow the actual defenders to push up and squeeze the opposition.
To understand how committed Postecoglou is to his goalkeeper having a high starting position and routinely being close to the centre circle, check out his reaction to Adam Federici being lobbed from way out as Australia lost at home to Greece in a 2016 friendly.
Postecoglou defended his goalkeeper, saying: “It wasn’t a horrible mistake — Feders was doing what he was supposed to be doing. That’s (the goal) not his responsibility; it’s my responsibility, because that’s how we want our goalkeeper to play. Every now and then that will happen to us and I’m prepared to accept that. In the longer term, it sets us up to be the team we want to be.”
Whoever ends up as his Spurs goalkeeper will be forgiven for being lobbed, they won’t be forgiven for taking a backwards step.
Nor will they be forgiven if they start hitting unnecessary long passes.
Postecoglou’s goalkeeper at Celtic for the past two seasons has been Joe Hart, who wasn’t naturally suited to the role — a high starting position and distribution are not his strengths. Former England No 1 Hart was, after all, bombed out of Manchester City by Pep Guardiola as soon as he took over seven years ago because of his deficiencies in these areas, spending the next two years on loan at Torino and then West Ham. Then, during his year at Spurs in 2020-21, Hart played as a much more old-fashioned type of goalkeeper during his handful of appearances in the FA Cup and Europa League.
He was not a Celtic signing led by then-newly-appointed Postecoglou, but the Australian worked hard to teach him what he needed. Hart proved a good student, even if he never quite operated as that third centre-back. It also helped the standard of pressing in the Scottish Premiership is not the highest.
Looking at the squad he is inheriting, it’s clear neither Hugo Lloris nor Fraser Forster really fits the Postecoglou mould. Lloris is expected to leave this summer, though, saying as much in an interview last week, while Forster will likely stay on as the No 2.
Of all the positions in Postecoglou’s first Spurs line-up, goalkeeper feels like the one where the solution is not currently on the books. The club are aware of this, and even before Postecoglou’s arrival had identified it as a key priority.
David Raya is one of their main targets, but Brentford are asking £40million for him — despite the 27-year-old Spaniard’s contract expiring next year.
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Full-backs
Full-backs are pivotal to the way Postecoglou’s sides play, and are asked to invert and be extra midfielders. Regular watchers of Pep Guardiola’s teams and more recently Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal will be familiar with this style.
Postecoglou first started doing this in Japan, with Yokohama F. Marinos, and it later became a staple when he moved on to Celtic.
Left-back Greg Taylor was a big beneficiary in Glasgow, going from a player many thought wasn’t Celtic quality to mastering what is a sophisticated job spec and becoming a regular in the Scotland squad. Meanwhile, over on the other side, Taylor’s tucking in allowed Josip Juranovic to bomb forward — though on many occasions he was asked to invert himself and was very comfortable doing so. Juranovic impressed so much for Celtic he was Croatia’s starting right-back at the World Cup last year, helping them to finish third and earning himself a move to Germany’s eventual Champions League qualifiers Union Berlin the following month.
An issue with this Tottenham squad is they have played with wing-backs rather than true full-backs over the past few years, so there will have to be a fair bit of readjustment.
One proxy of that Taylor-Juranovic dynamic would be to have Ben Davies tucking infield, with Pedro Porro given licence to predominantly attack, which is what he’s far more comfortable doing. Or Postecoglou could flip it and go with Emerson Royal inverting and Destiny Udogie or Ryan Sessegnon flying forward on the left. Djed Spence has the potential to either invert or stay wide.
Another option, which he employed at Celtic at times, is to have both full-backs invert and really crowd the central areas of the pitch.
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Centre-backs
Spurs have been looking for a left-footed centre-back for years, and finally bringing one in will be important to Postecoglou.
At Celtic, Carl Starfelt had to play the role despite being right-footed, which limited how effectively he could play out. Yuki Kobayashi was signed in January to try to address the issue, and Postecoglou was keen to add another left-footed centre-back to his title-winning squad this summer. Now, at Tottenham, he’ll look to do similar, with Davies not comfortable as a centre-back in a two and Clement Lenglet, even if the Barcelona loanee joins permanently, unlikely to be viewed as a first-choice option.
Both Postecoglou’s centre-backs will be expected to be comfortable in possession and willing to take risks. A common sight at Celtic over the past couple of years was the manager screaming at their Spurs old boy Cameron Carter-Vickers for being too direct. Thomas Broich told The Athletic this week that, while playing for him at Brisbane Roar, the team felt Postecoglou’s ire for not giving a centre-back — who had just given the ball away, leading to an opposition goal — sufficient passing options.
With this in mind, there is excitement at Spurs about what the new head coach can do with Cristian Romero.
The 25-year-old has had a mixed second season in north London, but is confident on the ball, bordering on a healthy arrogance at times, and the hope is he can find the consistency that has generally been lacking since he joined in the summer of 2021. And although he has generally played in a back three at club level, he was part of a four during Argentina’s World Cup-winning campaign last year.
Romero’s pace will also be important because of Postecoglou preferred high defensive line. He will also help with recoveries, defending against counter-attacks and counter-pressing when Spurs lose the ball in midfield.
The importance of that high line to Posetecoglou was such that, at Yokohama, he got rid of the hugely-respected and popular veteran centre-back Yuji Nakazawa at the end of the first season because he was too slow at the age of 40 to play with such an advanced starting position. The club then went from narrowly avoiding relegation in his debut year to winning the title 12 months later.
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Midfielders
Regular Postecoglou watchers say the key to his system working is a No 6 who can drop deep, collect the ball from the centre-backs and spray ambitious passes to the full-backs and wingers.
At Celtic, Callum McGregor was excellent in this role, and there’s hope Yves Bissouma could do something similar in his Spurs team. Bissouma was used that way in his final season at Brighton & Hove Albion (who Postecoglou was linked with managing in September as a Graham Potter replacement) before last summer’s move to Tottenham and looks to have the right skill set. As, in theory, does Tanguy Ndombele, who has been on loan at Napoli this season, helping them win the Serie A title.
Another contender for the No 6 position is Oliver Skipp, who could turn out to be exactly the kind of player Postecoglou will love working with and inspire a lot of confidence in.
Postecoglou likes to play with two No 8s who are comfortable moving into wide areas to take up some of the space vacated by inverted full-backs. In this regard, his Celtic teams have been compared to Arteta’s Arsenal, with both sides liking to play triangles out wide between the winger, No 8 and full-back. Rodrigo Bentancur, once he’s back from the season-ending ACL knee injury he suffered in February, could do this very well, given his ability to move the ball quickly, dribble and get around the pitch. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg feels like less of a natural fit for either the No 6 or No 8 role under the new coach.
In general, Spurs lack another natural No 8 to complement Bentancur. Reo Hatate performed the left No 8 role brilliantly for Celtic, being very effective in small spaces in a way that is reminiscent of new Liverpool signing Alexis MacAllister’s play for Brighton. Of their current squad, Giovani Lo Celso could potentially do it, but after 18 months on loan to Villarreal in Spain, his future is uncertain.
One interesting option would be to try Dejan Kulusevski in one of the No 8 positions. In Postecoglou’s first season at Celtic, Tom Rogic and David Turnbull were converted from orthodox No 10s to play as No 8s. Kulusevski, who prefers to play more centrally, could possibly excel too in a system where the No 8s expected to contribute plenty of assists.
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Wingers
That said, Kulusevski could also fly as one of Postecoglou’s wingers, which are pivotal too. “I love a winger, so it’d have to be Jimmy Johnstone, mate,” he said in March when asked which former Celtic players would best suit his style.
Postecoglou demands that his wingers stay high and wide, stretch the play, take on the opposition full-back and attack the penalty box, and go for the space directly in front of goal when the winger on the other side of the pitch has the ball.
A typical Celtic goal under Postecoglou had one of the No 8s or full-backs sliding the ball through for one winger to beat his man and then cross for the other (or Kyogo Furuhashi, the centre-forward) to score. You’d think Son and Kulusevski would relish the role, and enjoy their focus being on attacking play rather than supporting their wing-back defensively, as often happened under Conte.
The other side of playing winger for Postecoglou is being able to press relentlessly, something which might suit Richarlison more than Son.
“The manager drills it into us: when we have the ball we attack as an XI, and when we don’t we defend as an XI,” said Celtic’s McGregor last year.
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Forwards
Richarlison also looks to be well-suited to playing up front for Postecoglou, with his willingness and ability to run all day, and lead the team’s press. This is something Furuhashi has done exceptionally well in his couple of years at Celtic. This season, it was his pressing and hard work that Postecoglou would always cite when asked about his Japanese striker — rather than his superb finishing and 34 goals in all competitions.
A month into Postecoglou’s first season in Glasgow, Celtic sold Odsonne Edouard, who has been their 22-goal top scorer the previous year, to Crystal Palace. Eyebrows were raised at the time but the sense now is that the Frenchman wouldn’t have fitted his high-tempo style.
As well as Furuhashi, countryman Daizen Maeda, who is extraordinarily fit, is a perfect example of this.
And interestingly, even when Postecoglou brought in strikers with a different physical profile, such as the 6ft 1in (185cm) Giorgos Giakoumakis, he didn’t ask his team to play a different way and go more direct. Instead, Giakoumakis had to adapt to them and focus on bringing others into play, pressing, and getting into the box. This is all part of Postecoglou’s approach of no real Plan B, just Plan A done better.
A really interesting wrinkle in all of this is where Harry Kane, assuming he doesn’t leave this summer, fits in.
He’s not a relentlessly pressing centre-forward, so Postecoglou could tweak the system to something more akin to the false nines he used at Melbourne Victory. Kane is very adept at that sort of job, and it could be he’s asked to attack the box from deeper positions, with one of the wide players or No 8s leading the press.
In other ways, Kane could be a big beneficiary of ‘Ange-ball’.
At Celtic, for instance, Postecoglou demanded that his wingers put plenty of crosses into the box, which would massively suit Kane, who just broke the Premier League record for headed goals in a season with 10. In build-up play, the England captain could help make chances by drifting wide to the half-spaces and creating overloads with combinations of the No 8s and full-backs — out wide and in the half-spaces were where most goalscoring opportunities came from Postecoglou’s Celtic.
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But whoever the player is, and whatever their position, the key will be embracing Postecoglou’s methods and showing the bravery he demands.
As was the case at Celtic, everyone will be starting from scratch in the new head coach’s eyes, and so we should have a very interesting pre-season in store as Postecoglou evaluates the squad he has inherited.
(Top photo: Tottenham Hotspur FC/Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images)