Ange Postecoglou cops 'disgusting' swipe as football fans defend Tottenham coach

Ange Postecoglou has been the victim of a vicious public attack by an English journalist amid Tottenham's 3-3 draw with Manchester City. The Spurs boss was widely praised for his tactical moves but one English reporter has decided to let rip at the former Socceroos coach.

The Guardian's Jonathan Liew has been a critic of Postecoglou from the beginning and most recently accused the 58-year-old of telling "bulls***" and said that he's overrated as a manager. "I'm just not having Ange," Liew said on The Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast. "I’m not having Ange Postecoglou. As a coach, I can't stand him."

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Podcast host Mark Rushden stated the Aussie manager was a "lovely man" but Liew disagreed, saying it is all an act. "He comes across as a lovely man. All of the people saying he’s great, saying he's a great bloke — nobody knows him," Liew said. "All you know about him are the little 45-second clips that come from his press conferences or that turn up on your Twitter feed every week. Honestly, it’s just such bulls***."

The veteran football columnist says Postecoglou is "an unbelievable talker" but believes his results at Tottenham have been far from as impressive as they have been made out to be. "On the pitch, things have been going well, but they have a good squad," he said. "What we're seeing now and what we're going to see over the medium and long term is that Spurs are going to regress. They are nowhere near title contenders. They don’t have a coach or a squad that’s going to get them anywhere near the title race. They'll probably drop to about sixth or seventh because there are better-funded and better-coached teams out there."

Liew also questioned Postecoglou's club loyalty despite his preaching about family and respect. "For all the attention devoted to his homespun manner and natural charm, less is said about perhaps the key driving force behind Postecoglou: his ruthless personal ambition, the desire to keep progressing and keep challenging himself," Liew wrote in a Guardian column.

"Postecoglou builds his teams with the fierceness of a family, but he is not afraid of abruptly breaking them up. He has not spent more than three years at any club since the 1990s. He walked out on the Australia national team just before the 2018 World Cup because he felt the aims of the national federation did not align with his own."

Liew's recent character assassination of Postecoglou has not gone down well with Aussie football fans who have taken aim at his comments. Social media users called out the veteran journalist's "bizarre" opinion which is based on 45-second Twitter clips.

Postecoglou's "stubborn" tactics questioned

Liew is far from the first football commentator to take aim at Postecoglou, with the Aussie manager's high defensive line and attacking style of play coming under fire in recent weeks after a run of three-straight losses. Former Tottenham midfielder Jermaine Jenas said after Spurs' loss to Aston Villa that there has been a "naivety to some of Postecoglou’s decisions". "At the moment there is a feeling they are able to lose games but still feel good about it — but that won't last forever," Jenas said.

Former England manager Glenn Hoddle recently labelled Postecoglou's decision to persist with a high defensive line despite being reduced to nine players during Spurs' 4-1 defeat to Chelsea last month as "footballing suicide". "They've done it all season," Hoddle said. "They had the defenders in there that they've had it work, but it seems to me they haven't changed their tactics. They've got to change."

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