Ange Postecoglou made harsh criticisms of Tottenham, stating that "it's not a big club," following the dismissal of Thomas Frank. The coach, who succeeded Postecoglou last summer, was fired on Wednesday, with Spurs sitting in 16th place in the Premier League. In statements to The Overlap's Stick to Football podcast, the manager, who was also dismissed from Nottingham Forest this season, analyzed the situation of his former club, which he finds "curious." "Tottenham is a curious club. They made a big change at the end of last year, not only with me but also with the departure of Daniel Levy [CEO], and created this whole environment of uncertainty," said Postecoglou, who was let go despite winning the UEFA Europa League. The coach questions the logic behind the club's decisions: "There’s no guarantee with any manager you hire – they’ve had world-class managers there and they haven’t succeeded. And why? Thomas comes in and what is his goal, what is the club's goal?" Postecoglou added: "If you’re going to make such a big change, you have to understand that there will be some instability. Did Thomas know he was going to face that? I don’t know." For Postecoglou, the main gap at Tottenham lies in the discrepancy between its ambitions and its investment policy. "They built an incredible stadium, incredible training facilities, but when you look at their spending and, in particular, their wage structure, they are not a big club," he stated. The coach backed his opinion with his own experience in the transfer market. "I realized this because when we tried to sign players, we weren’t in the market for those players. At the end of my first year, when we finished in fifth place [in the Premier League], I thought: 'How do you go from fifth place to truly fighting for something?' Well, we needed to sign top players from the Premier League, but fifth place that year didn’t get us into the Champions League, so we didn’t have the money. We ended up signing Dominic Solanke… I liked him a lot. Then, three young players [Archie Gray, Wilson Odobert, and Lucas Bergvall] arrived. At the time, I was aiming for Pedro Neto, Mbeumo, and Semenyo, as well as Marc Guéhi, due to what we needed," he explained. Postecoglou also criticized the club's lack of boldness, which contrasts with its motto "To Dare Is To Do." "When you enter Tottenham, what you see everywhere is 'To Dare Is To Do' and yet their actions are almost the antithesis of that. I think they haven’t realized that to win, you have to take some risks," he emphasized. "I felt that Tottenham, as a club, was saying: 'we are one of the big ones,' but the reality is that I don’t believe they are," he concluded. The coach confirmed that there is a lack of a winning mentality. "There is a hundred percent that exists, and that’s what I was trying to break. And then you break that by winning something and what do they do? They throw it all away and start over. And it’s not because of me, but what are they trying to achieve?"
Tottenham Ange Postecoglou remains central to this story.
Tottenham Ange Postecoglou remains central to this story.
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