It's sad that winning a trophy won't save Ange Postecoglou the evangelist... but this is why it would be the right call, writes Riath Al-Samarrai

We're a month shy of two years since senior elements of Tottenham thought their next manager would be Arne Slot. By the close of play on Sunday, the one who got away will most likely be anointed as a Premier League winner on the pitch in front of them.

A single point is all it will take for Liverpool, but given the road Tottenham have travelled under Ange Postecoglou, it wouldn't be grossly improper to predict three. Or none. Spurs can be funny like that.

But we know it's going to Liverpool imminently or a fraction later. They nailed the succession from Jurgen Klopp to Slot and he has pencilled the title on to their honours board, a breakthrough for the ages.

So, a penny for Daniel Levy's thoughts about those discussions between intermediaries in 2023. Ultimately it came down to how far Tottenham were willing to go in prising him from Feyenoord and the answer shaped into Postecoglou.

That wasn't so much a sliding-doors moment as a walk into the glass. Hindsight is wonderful, of course, as are attacking ideals that go hand-in-glove with a club's identity, but 18 league defeats is the kind of 'but' you can see from Pluto.

Meaning the question becomes one of what happens next. Or to frame it differently: what should Tottenham do about Postecoglou if he mitigates the shambles of his domestic form with victory in the Europa League?

That's a matter of growing relevance, given reporting in these pages and elsewhere this week that Postecoglou's time will soon be up, even if they do win a first trophy since 2008. We can call it the Erik ten Hag paradox, or the lessons of Juande Ramos.

Personally, I'd find it a sad outcome if Postecoglou were to achieve such a wonderful moment and go out that way. Sad but not wrong.

Sad because of what he has represented. Because of his idealism. Because of the colour he has brought to our top flight and the route he took to get there. Because of his refusal to bend, even now when he might be the last man in the room who still believes there is a viable method in his approach.

There has been something to love about that refusal to change. About Ange the evangelist.

But those are conceptual thoughts on a concept-driven man. Alas, the idea of Postecoglou and the reality have long since veered away in different directions.

Time will tell how Levy qualifies his decision, assuming he actions a change that I'm told he was hugely reluctant to countenance until recently. But the stretch of league games between September 29 and December 8 will surely stand as the period when his ideas first took hold.

If you'll indulge a minor review, we should start with the 3-0 drubbing of Manchester United at Old Trafford. They were majestic, first against 11 men and then 10 — James Maddison and Micky van de Ven excelled. Next time out in the league, they led Brighton 2-0 after 37 minutes and had shipped three for defeat by the 66th. Maddison and Van de Ven stank.

That kind of swing would be replicated in the stories of personnel and outcomes for a full two months. Every game brought an undulation.

Returning after the international break, Tottenham trounced West Ham 4-1. Then they immediately handed Crystal Palace their first win of the campaign. The Dr Tottenham gags kicked in but were parked just as quickly — Aston Villa visited on a seven-game unbeaten run and left with the same scars as West Ham. 4-1. Brilliant performance.

Next up, they were at home on November 10. And Tottenham, back then, were very good at home. The opposition? Ipswich. Winless Ipswich. Spurs lost. And then they battered Manchester City 4-0 away and followed it by taking one point from games against Fulham, Bournemouth and Chelsea.

In the last of those, they led 2-0 after 11 minutes and lost 4-3, but that's what the cycle demanded. That's the Tottenham of Postecoglou, a team to be enjoyed but not trusted. Admired and never copied. Demons on the ball and flimsy as hell without it, over and again, a constantly swinging pendulum.

We have said all of this since the last throes of 2023-24 and Postecoglou's problem is that nothing has changed. The point being that in the wild world of management, variance kills — it is the peril of high ceilings and low floors. They look good in churches but not in football clubs, especially those run by preachers.

Of course, failure has many causes. I have used this space previously to document Levy's defining role in that farce and the shame of a wage bill that is a mile beneath Tottenham's capabilities. But while he tied a hand behind Postecoglou's back, it was the manager's choice to slap himself with the other.

Because how many times have we spoken about a lack of tactical dexterity? Even when it was evident in the second leg of their Europa League quarter-final against Eintracht Frankfurt — a performance of pragmatism and sense — they followed it last Monday by conceding twice within 16 minutes against Nottingham Forest. Again, that same pattern. That same inability to coach some consistency into players like Cristian Romero, who was the star against Frankfurt and hooked at half-time against Forest.

We can attach mitigations to what has happened at Spurs, which goes beyond Levy's spending habits. That would be the discussion around injuries. But where was the wisdom in Postecoglou flogging his runners at the height of the crisis early in the year?

Where was the pivot to a different, less-intense approach when it was needed for the players still standing? One study in February found that hamstring injuries made up 58 per cent of Tottenham's muscle-related injuries, compared to 41 per cent across the whole Premier League — you can believe entirely in bad luck, and we can rightly identify that Levy left them thin, but you should also query if different modes of thinking were needed from the manager.

That the poor form has continued since the walking wounded returned sits as a parallel path to the same conclusion. Along with several others, they feed into an escalating certainty about when the relationship with Postecoglou will end. Again, there will be a sadness attached to that. Especially if it follows a win in Bilbao on May 21.

That would be a suitable way of football thanking Postecoglou for the fun of the past two seasons. A victory for dreamers. And who doesn't like a dreamer?

But there's an obvious problem with dreams, just as there is with decisions made in the emotion of a ticker-tape shower.

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United learned that with Ten Hag in 2024 and Tottenham with Ramos in 2008. Lest we forget, Ramos followed winning the League Cup by recording the club's worst start to a Premier League season — Levy didn't see the warnings and Ramos didn't see the end of October.

The sense is that he won't make the same mistake twice. Regrettably, and quite possibly to the detriment of the Premier League, it feels unavoidable, like those set-piece goals from season one of the Postecoglou show.

That aspect actually got a little better. They learned something. But here they are, trending towards their lowest points haul for a 38-game season.

Punctuating that with a trophy would be fabulous — they talk to the soul of football and Postecoglou is a man of soul. But Levy is a numbers man and they favour different conversations.

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