were they?
No Ange added to his dismal season with yet another loss, 5-1 to the newly crowned Champions Liverpool, in what was a record breaking result, as Ange has joined Ossie with the most losses in a Premier League season.
Hoddle and Pleat combined to lose 19 games in 03/04, Peter Shreeves and Keith Burkinshaw lost more in a season, but that was a bigger league, more games played. The record is 22 losses back in 1954/35 and with four games to go Ange could well equal or beat that record of Percy Smith.
And looking at the fixture list before this game you could see them losing all of them. Ever other manager under Levy has been sacked for less. Some of them far far less. AVB was binned off for being stuffed by Liverpool, yet they sat 7th in the table not 16th. He’d taken them to their highest PL league points the season before and left with the best winning percentage of any Spurs manager in the PL.
AVB has the same number of wins in all competitions as Ange, despite having managed 14 fewer games than the Aussie fraud. Ange has 20 more losses.
Did anyone really think this was gonna be any different? Even opening the scoring? Hell, that made it even less shocking. Solanke, imagine giving up a goal to a bum like Solanke. The law of the ex, working wonders here, as he only ever scored one goal for Liverpool.
Though things could have got off to a familiar start. From a Liverpool corner, Vicario punched out to the edge of the box, where a Liverpool player was stationed his attempt was poor but fell to Gakpo on the box who went close. But for the third game running the same scenario. Opposition set piece in and around the Spurs area, ball goes into the box, is cleared to the edge where an opposition player is all on his lonesome to play it back in. Three games running.
Hey Ange, how about some coaching. Some analysis of previous defeats. Look at what you did wrong.
But then 12 minutes in and from Maddison’s corner and Solanke actually does something. Decent header and the keeper has no chance. Just left for Van Dijk to stand there and moan at everyone else.
Of course the good times didn’t last. Didn’t last five minutes. So simple ball down the channel, a cross and a sliding tap in. VAR says onside and they’re level. Shortly after they could have been ahead but for VAR saying it was offside and it was almost exactly the move.
It didn’t take long for them to take the lead and then extend it. Eight minutes after the equaliser came the go ahead with a screamer from outside the box and then ten minutes later the extender. That first one everyone is blaming Gray for being late on the ball and then being muscled off it, but it’s the ball from Tel that was the problem. An awful ball and an awful decision to play such a ball in such a position – honestly they can’t pay money for Tel in the summer, he’s a nothing player. From a corner and Gakpo is allowed to weave his way in the box to line up a path to goal and then allowed to shoot and score.
Ange made half-time substitutions, Sarr and Kulusevski for Gray and Maddison. Yet again Ange is scapegoating Maddison for an all-round didn’t look coached display by everyone. Between them in the second half the subs touched the ball just a bit more than Maddison did in the first. They made no improvement whatsoever. Kulusevski’s headless running around.
It was so easy for Liverpool they were trying their best to gift Salah a goal, after he’d gone goalless in his last five, with just one in his last 8. In the end they didn’t have to because Spurs were there to gift him one. I know lads, why not let Salah cut in on his left and have a pop, what’s the worst that could happen? Well, that thing that’s happened 15 times previously, for three different clubs.
Strange that Spence doesn’t work so well on the right, yet looks a star at left-back. He had Salah in his pocket previously in that position Udogie meanwhile was all at sea. Resulting his own goal for Liverpool’s fifth, when for once he got in front to prevent a Salah tap-in.
Spurs best chance came from a cross by Johnson. Solanke was clueless,so not in place to get anything on it, while Tel had it taken off his toe.
It was another all-round clueless display by a team that didn’t look coached, against a team that definitively do. Coached by a guy who could have been coaching Spurs, but Levy went for the cheap and available option of Ange Postecoglou and their lowest league position that hasn’t ended in relegation and it could get worse.
Many sacked for less…