Ange Postecoglou has reinvented the Spurs. But the path forward is murky | Tottenham Hotspur

tThe good news for Tottenham is that they did not concede a goal from a set piece against Liverpool on Sunday. But there wasn't much more. TO defeat 4-2 It meant that they had lost four consecutive league games for the first time since 2004 and if Tottenham want to take fourth place from Aston Villa, they have to win their three remaining games, one of which is against Manchester City, and hope that Villa doesn't do it. either of them wins.

A little perspective is essential. The Spurs finished eighth last year and the season ended in resentment and recrimination. Antonio Conte had left at the end of March, by which time he had made it clear that he did not really want to be at the club, while the fans had grown tired of his tremendously negative football; What can be tolerated when he is producing results soon fades away when those results are exhausted.

Ange Postecoglou is different, not only from Conte but from most coaches. He sounds like a human. He can be irritable, but he doesn't like orchestrated rants. At 58 years old, this is by far the highest level you have trained at; this could be the culmination of a life's work that took him from Australia to Japan to Celtic. For Postecoglou, these aren't just a couple more years on the CV. This is his legacy. He desperately wants to be at Spurs. His attitude is refreshing, as is football at first. His Spurs have attacked, sometimes recklessly. He earned 26 points in his first 10 league games in charge. Nobody really thought Spurs could win the title, but for a quarter of the season they were on top.

There was always going to be a reset. That kind of shape was never sustainable. After 2.6 points per game over 10 games, they have scored 1.36 over the next 25. Newcastle, Chelsea and Manchester United all feel eerily close. They reached last season's points tally on April 7 and haven't gotten any since. Given the sale of Harry Kane last summer, a new manager, a revolution, Tottenham would surely have happily accepted 60 points by now with a sense of regained fun; the problem is the order. Since the end of October everything seems to be drifting.

The first complaints against Postecoglou have begun. His stubbornness on set pieces seems strange. “I don't see it as a problem,” he said after conceding two corner kicks in the north london derby last weekend, making it inevitable that Spurs would concede a header from a set piece against Chelsea on Thursday. His team has conceded 16 goals from set pieces this season; As a proportion of total goals conceded, only Nottingham Forest have a worse record.

What Postecoglou was surely saying was not that he didn't think set pieces were worth worrying about, but rather that if Spurs wanted to close the gap on the Champions League qualifiers, it wouldn't be by improving their defense. the corners, but improving. his general pattern of play. That's a much more understandable position than pretending that set pieces don't matter, but even so, he imagines that the figure of 16 conceded could be halved: how many more points would that have contributed? Probably enough to compete with Villa for the top four head to head.

However, the biggest problem, as Postecoglou said, is probably the other area in which he is dogmatic, which is playing a high-tempo, high-possession game. Liverpool, despite their recent setback, remains the team that presses most aggressively in the first division, while Tottenham have conceded possession in their defensive third more than any other team. It was predictable that this patched-up, low-confidence version of Tottenham could struggle at Anfield, a ground where their recent record is terrible. In such circumstances, isn't it worth it for a coach to give in a little on his principles and not just insist that this is how we play, mate?

That adds to a general openness (nine Premier League teams have conceded fewer goals than Spurs) to create concerns that Postecoglou has given fans back their Tottenham too much, which is the best they can be under his command. is an occasionally exciting team. who are generally good to watch, but too open to really challenge the titles.

However, we must not forget the improvement compared to a year ago. There are caveats, but given the turmoil of last summer, it's fair to give Postecoglou at least one more window before passing too firm a judgment. The team still lacks a bit of depth and is not yet fully designed for the type of football they want to play. Postecoglou's problem is that these warnings take on greater importance due to the recent crisis. The season as a whole has been promising but the ending has been disappointing. The question now is to prove that he was the reason for the rebound at the beginning of the season, and not just Conte's absence.

This is an excerpt from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, Guardian US' weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Do you have any questions for Jonathan? Email footballwithjw@theguardian.comand will answer the best in a future edition.