Very sad and heartbreaking Tottenham hotspurs head coach Postecoglou ange is finally gone due to…….

Ange Postecoglou was pretty emphatically (and obviously) ticked off after Tottenham Hotspur’s 0-2 loss to Manchester City on Tuesday, giving terse and cryptic responses in his press conference about the club’s “foundation” and seemingly calling into question the mentality of the club and/or its support. He didn’t say why, so it was left to the reporters in the press conference, and all of us, to guess his reasonings, and they seemingly weren’t too difficult to tease out.

Now, Jack Pitt-Brooke in The Athletic has given a little more context to Postecoglou reaction. In the article, Postecoglou, already grumpy from losing four straight matches, was taken aback by a lackadaisical approach to the City match and what the result would mean in City and Arsenal’s pursuit of the Premier League title, both from supporters and from members of Tottenham’s own staff.

OK. Now I understand a little more where Big Ange is coming from, and honestly it’s not surprising. I wrote earlier today about how Postecoglou is hyper-fixated on winning at all costs, as are most Premier League football managers. It’s how they’re wired. Ange isn’t a Spurs fan, he’s the guy Spurs hired to fix their problems so they can win again.

So when a locally-based junior staffer, someone who is also super-attuned to the hyper-local dynamics of North London football fandom in a way that Ange clearly is not, jokes to the gaffer that he should play the kids so Arsenal don’t win the league, I absolutely understand why that would cheese him off. That was a dumb, dumb move by the nameless junior staffer — while the opinion is valid (whether you personally agree with it or not) but it’s the kind of sentiment best whispered to your mates at the pub, not to the head coach of the professional football club where you work!

This, combined with a string of bad losses and the fans’ weird and somewhat muted support at the stadium yesterday, does a lot to explain why Postecoglou was furious, and why he suddenly started to question the “foundations” of the club’s support. In his mind, there’s absolutely no reason not to want to win every match put in front of you. Tottenham fans collectively may come to a similar conclusion, but approach it via a very, very different calculus.