Ange Postecoglou with his hand over his mouth
Ange Postecoglou refuses to change the way Spurs play Credit: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
You could not help but admire Tottenham’s dedication to honouring Squid Game – the ultra-violent Netflix series in which contestants play children’s games for cash and are gruesomely killed if they lose – with their own form of dystopian horror on live TV.
Nothing expressed this club’s self-image as an entertainment franchise rather than a serious football institution quite like the sight of people in bright pink hooded jumpsuits, mimicking the guards in a cult South Korean survival thriller, parading around the pitch while Ange Postecoglou’s players shipped six goals at home.
Squid Game character at Spurs
Sunday’s match was, in part, a marketing event for the new series of Squid Game Credit: Getty Images/Catherine Ivill
On a day when supporters had gathered on the Tottenham High Road to accuse chairman Daniel Levy of diluting their club’s soul, the team delivered the type of shambolic performance to justify their every grievance.
A ludicrously high line that Liverpool exploited to their hearts’ content? Check. An attacking philosophy that was not so much cavalier as kamikaze? Check again. Magnifying the grisly absurdity of it all was the fact that the manager, seeing his side slip into the bottom half of the table and hearing the ominous swell of discontent in the stands, vowed never to dial down his devil-may-care philosophy.
“I think I’ve been quite patient, sitting here being asked the same question,” Postecoglou bristled. “If people want me to change my approach, I’m not going to change.”
In his crumpled demeanour, he often gives the air of a harassed police chief somewhere deep in the Australian bush. But at heart he is the last of the true idealists, so stubbornly wedded to his all-or-nothing template that you sense he would rather preside over these nine goals of chaos than die wondering. It might be a laudable quality in another context, this steadfast refusal to compromise. And yet in Tottenham’s predicament, 11th in the league and with supporters grumbling at the apparent lack of a plan to staunch the bleeding, there comes a point when such obstinacy looks less like a noble act than wilful self-harm.
During Postecoglou’s 18 months in charge, Tottenham’s Premier League matches have featured an average of 3.6 goals per game, the highest scoring rate for any manager in the competition who has presided over 50 or more matches. Forget Squid Game, or Formula One, or American football, or any of the myriad partnerships that have made the club such a commercial behemoth, it is the spectacle on the pitch that is providing the most wildly intoxicating ride. Tottenham have amassed 39 league goals already this season – two more than Liverpool, who sit four points clear at the summit at Christmas.
But the defensive mayhem is far too costly a trade-off. At times here Postecoglou’s system was plain absurd, with the back four pushing up so high that Liverpool were just a lucky bounce away from a two-on-one that would have given them a 6-1 lead. Tottenham were fortunate the humiliation was not even greater, with the void in central midfield so glaring that Dominik Szoboszlai could scarcely believe his luck. Yes, his interplay with Mohamed Salah was sumptuous to watch, as the pair joined forces to run riot. But the resistance was embarrassingly powderpuff.
Much more of this and the wolves at the door will start massing. While those waving “Levy Out” placards outside the St Francis de Sales Church before kick-off directed their ire more at the boardroom than the dugout, Postecoglou cannot shirk his share of blame for this drumbeat of mutiny. He calls on fans to be grateful that they are being so royally entertained, but their forbearance will only last so long when the faultlines are this deep. The ground rapidly emptied as Tottenham completed their self-sabotage early in the second half, with Liverpool players forming such an orderly queue to score that Szoboszlai could be almost casual in squaring to Salah for the team’s fifth and the Egyptian’s second.
There had been plans for protest balloons to be released in the 24th minute, marking 24 years of control by Tottenham’s parent company ENIC. Most fans were too distracted, though, still seething at Luis Díaz’s opener, to put up much of a fight. In any case, stewards were seen puncturing “Levy Out” balloons before they could cause too much trouble. At one level, you have to marvel at what Levy has built, here inside the most lavishly-appointed stadium in Europe. But the more hapless the team become, the more you wonder if the chairman has his priorities straight. For how long can you tout a tie-up with Netflix when your manager’s masochistic tactics are producing filletings as gory as anything in Squid Game?
Worse, Postecoglou’s relationship with supporters is growing more fractious by the week. He has already confronted them once, after a witless defeat to Bournemouth, and was not inclined after this thrashing to give the latest chorus of boos the time of day. “I get that people think I can flick a switch and miraculously build a different team,” he said, sarcastically. “Who knows, some of them might even understand the situation we’re in. But many don’t.”
These are the types of statements that suggest a harsher reckoning might not be far around the corner. Did he fear such judgment? “I think I am getting judged,” he shrugged. “People aren’t exactly throwing platitudes at me.”
Tottenham are at a tipping point, with the crowd’s indulgence of their Australian dreamer nearing exhaustion. The impression is that Postecoglou, so high-minded he appears to regard victory as secondary to the journey, is not even bothering to read the room.