‘Fans have lost faith in me’ – Postecoglou lifts lid on ‘tough time’ as under-pressure Spurs boss makes bold prediction
ANGE POSTECOGLOU admitted a large number of Spurs fans have lost faith in him — and confessed he would start the season differently if he could.
Tottenham are languishing in the bottom half of the table, lost to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semi-finals and went out of the FA Cup after a fourth-round defeat to Aston Villa.
Their wretched, injury-hit campaign could still end gloriously, though, if they can win the Europa League, with a quarter-final first leg at home to Eintracht Frankfurt next Thursday.
But boss Ange knows he no longer retains the full backing of many disillusioned supporters, despite the promise of his debut campaign last year.
The 59-year-old said: “There’s no doubt there’s probably a large portion of Tottenham fans who have lost a bit of faith and belief in what we’re doing.
“They were encouraged by what they saw last year but that certainly hasn’t manifested itself this year.
“I still am really optimistic and bullish about the squad we’ve got. I think there will be enormous growth in them once we can navigate through this.
“Surviving tough times can be such a strong uniter of people.”
Postecoglou has had a crippling injury list to deal with, with a whole host of players suffering from muscle issues.
And in an interview for Optus Sport, the Aussie told compatriot and former goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer that he wished he had not worked his players so hard at the start season.
The former Celtic chief explained: “We probably got the start of the year wrong. It’s becoming increasingly challenging for footballers these days, they don’t get the traditional break.
“We went into the season really hard and we probably underestimated the challenges of Europe this year with the two extra games and us having a deep cup run.
“You add to the mix that we lost some key players early on and it feels like we’ve been chasing our tails since then. We haven’t been able to get ahead of the challenge we’ve had.
“Every time we try to get some steady ground, something else happens that shifts and a lot of that goes back to the start of the year.
“We maybe would have taken a different approach knowing the season we had ahead.
“I’ve been trying to mend things as we go along.
“Probably in hindsight, with some better planning at the start of the year, I would have gone for a bit of a softer start to the season in terms of the way we tackled things.”
Spurs travel across London to rivals Chelsea tomorrow, host basement boys Southampton on Sunday and then have their first leg at home to Frankfurt four days later.
Postecoglou added: “The Europa League is a massive opportunity. We’re one of eight clubs [still in it].
“If you can go through what we’ve been through this year and come out the other side of it and have success, it’s a great builder for the future.”