Ange Postecoglou has made it very clear that he expects Tottenham Hotspur to be involved in the Premier League title race next season.
The Australian told football.london last week that he expected to be preparing Spurs this summer to have a big season next time out and he confirmed on Monday, ahead of the derby clash at West Ham, that in 12 months’ time he expects the north London outfit to be involved in the title race.
“I hope so or why am I doing what I’m doing? That’s why I came to the club. As somebody said to me last week, ‘Just do your job Ange’, and my job is to come here and try to bring success and if you don’t think you’re going to be in the title race in 12 months’ time then I don’t know why I’m here,” said the Tottenham head coach.
When quizzed on who told him to just do his job, he responded: “Oh, just a confidant. A couple of confidants who straighten me up every time I wobble, including my wife too, by the way. Very often.”
Postecoglou is refusing to simply limit fifth-placed Tottenham to a top four finish as a target this season despite the 11-point gap to top of the table Liverpool.
“You don’t know but ultimately you don’t want to discount that possibility. That’s why I keep saying, if fourth’s our ultimate goal or we fall in with two games to spare, what does that mean? We don’t aspire to anything better than that?” he explained.
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“Where we sit at the moment, there’s nine games to go, we’ve got some challenging fixtures in there, but there’s nine games to go, let’s see where that takes us. I’d rather have that approach than having one specific target.
“It’d probably make my life easer if I said, ‘Lets make Champions League, that’s great’ because everyone thinks I’ve done a great job, but from my perspective, I keep saying it, I look at the teams who made the Champions League this year from last year, and that wasn’t the catalyst for them kicking on.
“It’s not their fault, it’s more demanding, but I’m not going to let this club rest on where we finish this year. Where we finish should be a foundation for us being better this year.”
The Tottenham boss was also asked whether Premier League clubs have got away from being clubs for the community, having once spoken about his hometown side South Melbourne being such a club.
In the 65th minute of Spurs’ win against Luton on Saturday, some sections of the home crowd within the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium turned their backs to the action for a minute in support of the senior fans they feel the club have turned their back on with the removal of senior concession season tickets for new applicants from the 2025/26 campaign and the reduction of discounts for those currently with them.
“Don’t kid yourself, we had plenty of protests at South Melbourne, just as vocal if not more so,” said the Australian. “That’s been a constant, and I think my constant position on this is that the fans have a voice and they should be able to use that voice in any manner they find appropriate, as long as it’s not disruptive, as long as it’s not to the detriment of the club in an overall way.
“At the beginning at Celtic, there were fan protests there. They have a voice and we’ve seen in the past when fans feel strongly about something.”
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