Ange Postecoglou reveals example of media double standard around Tottenham

Ange Postecoglou has contrasted the narrative around a few other Premier League clubs this season to the one about Tottenham last campaign, accusing the media of creating ‘hysteria’ around the North London club.

The Tottenham boss has clearly gone into attack mode with the press over the last few weeks, seemingly deciding that he is not going to take any barbs lying down.

Regularly over the last couple of months, Postecoglou has accused the media of having an anti-Spurs bias and has spoken of the need for more voices to defend the club publicly.

Postecoglou has now given a direct example of why the Lilywhites are judged by a different standard than some other clubs in the league.

Ange Postecoglou says the media’s hysteria around Tottenham is premeditated

The Australian exceeded expectations in his first season in charge of the Lilywhites, guiding them to a fifth-place finish despite losing their record goalscorer, Harry Kane, just before the start of the campaign.

Postecoglou has pointed out how finishing fifth was seen as a failure for him and Spurs last season, while sides in and around the Champions League spots this season have been receiving major accolades from the media.

The Tottenham boss told Football.London: “I love the frenzy around finishing fifth this year. They’re all brilliant, aren’t they? We finished fifth last year. Why is it such a disaster that we finished fifth?

“That’s what you need to ask everyone and yourselves… around this time last year, I was asked to lose a game, and I was wrong for wanting to win it.

“But we finished fifth last year, yet it’s not a good story. A better story is that my tenure has been a disaster and it continues to be. I just think that the kind of hysteria that surrounds what’s happening at the moment is all premeditated for a certain outcome. Hopefully, we can defy that.”

Postecoglou insists Spurs will benefit from short-term pain

Even though Spurs still have an opportunity to finish the season with silverware, they have undoubtedly gone backwards in the Premier League, looking set for a bottom-half finish.

However, Postecoglou insists that ups and downs were inevitable as the club is building for the long term, insisting that the Lilywhites will bear the fruits of their painful rebuild in the years to come.

When asked if the pain of this season is part of the process of building a competitive squad over the long term, the 59-year-old responded: “I think that’s pretty obvious. You just have to look at our recruitment strategy over the last two years. I think in the game against Frankfurt away, we had Romero, Porro and Bentancur as the only starters who were there when I came. That’s a fair whack of a rebuild.

“There’s always a pain in rebuilds because invariably you dip in the bottom end of the pool in terms of age demographic and you want that team to grow. If we’d done this last year, we’d probably be paying the same price but last year we still had some experience in the group to get us through.

“But this year we went young, which is the right strategy I believe – because you’ve seen the growth in our young players that I just think is so exciting for the years to come, but then we got hit with a ridiculous, unprecedented injury crisis which brought it all together in this scenario where it’s been a really difficult year.”

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