Tottenham: Ange Postecoglou happy to be judged on Spurs trophy fortunes after 'second season' claim
Ange Postecoglou says he will judge himself on whether he can deliver a trophy for Tottenham this season and is happy for others to do the same.
Postecoglou made headlines after Sunday's north London derby defeat when he insisted: “I always win things in my second year.”
Spurs are without a trophy since winning the EFL Cup in 2008 and face a potential banana skin against Coventry in Wednesday's third-round tie.
Postecoglou has won a trophy in his second season at each of his previous clubs where he spent more than a year and with the Australian national team.
Ahead of the game, the Australian said he "failed last year in my head" despite leading Spurs to fifth place in a broadly encouraging debut season, and insists he is happy to be judged on whether or not he can end their 16-year wait for silverware this term.
Told he was holding himself to a high standard, Postecoglou said: “Yeah it is, but that’s all I’ve got.
"I failed last year in my head because that’s how I’m geared... that’s been my whole career, that’s my foundation. That’s why I’m sitting here.
"There’s no other way I could have got here. No chance in any universe I could have got here from Australia and been sitting here answering questions at one of the biggest clubs in the world and the best competition in the world if I didn’t have some sort of self-belief based on something of substance.
"I was never going to get here with my charm and good looks. I’ve never tried to steer it another way.
“Have I ever downplayed anything since I’ve been here? So I’m willing to be measured against [my success this season], that means that I’m fair game. I’ve never said not to.
"Now, how you come to your summary at the end, that’s as much on you as it is me. You can make your assessment on just one thing or many things.
"But I’m happy to be judged against that standard because that’s my standard, that’s what I’ve done in the past and I don’t want to dilute that because then I miss the opportunity to continue on the road I’ve been on. I have no problems with people using that as a yardstick.
"I will say we’re four games into a new season, it’s pretty early. I realised in Scotland, they’d rule me out after two games. They said it was all over in the year we won the Double, so…I just find it…It’s just me, I’m going to be me. I’m just going to say these things the way I always have and I’m not going to change.
"It’s easy to… not easy but if I said ‘this is going to take three or four years’, then yeah it would relieve pressure. But I don’t want to wait three or four years. This year’s an opportunity and then if we do well this year, next year’s an opportunity. So that’s the way I think about it."
