Ange Postecoglou and Roberto De Zerbi are the future and British football will be better for it
A couple of hours after their magnificent bunfight of a match had finished, the group of Tottenham Hotspur fans at White Hart Lane station were still glowing in the result.
“That was proper Spurs,” one said. “We’re back to being who we should be.”
He had a point. It is impossible to imagine such a free-for-all attacking party being held under the watch of recent Spurs managers such as Antonio Conte or Jose Mourinho. Indeed, it was the kind of apparently random frenzy that would give those two masters of control sleepless nights. Yet, in many ways, what happens when Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs meet Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton may well represent the future. Apparently on the radar of both Manchester City and Liverpool to take over from Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, these two are the most fashionable coaches in the game. And, for the 61,000 fans pouring out of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday evening, their faces lit up by smiles, the sooner their methods are picked up across the game, the better.
Not that it always works for Spurs as triumphantly as it did on Saturday, when Brennan Johnson’s 96th-minute strike secured the points that took them back into the top four. At Everton the previous week, the insistence on perpetual attack had cost them a victory in equally dramatic circumstances. But that was the point Postecoglou made after the game: time is never a factor in his tactical approach. From the first to the 96th minute trying to score is the sole priority.
“All my teams historically have done that because the clock shouldn’t dictate the way you play,” he said. “You should always be looking for goals, even if you are losing 1-0 or winning 1-0. I think it helps in games like this when you are chasing the game.”
It is the kind of attitude Mourinho would regard as heresy. Score a goal, take the lead and close down is his ideal recipe. And it is one that has held sway across the game. Even Guardiola, the presiding genius of fluid football, likes his teams to shut up shop to ensure they do not let a lead slip. When his City won at Tottenham in the FA Cup last month, in the final few minutes Jack Grealish offered a masterclass in taking the ball into the corner and wasting time.
For Postecoglou and De Zerbi such ideas are anathema. Everything for them is geared to going for broke. Take the substitutes in this game. Brighton, away from home and in possession of an early lead, might have been expected to close things down. But De Zerbi, absent recovering from a dental operation, instructed his assistant Andrea Maldera to send on another forward. On came Ansu Fati and the formation switched to a gloriously reckless 4-2-4. Postecoglou, too, the moment his team equalised, was not satisfied with a point. On came Johnson and Son Heung-min. And so, already played at breakneck pace, things became even more frantic. Naturally, there were a host of mistakes by both teams: mishit through balls, players caught in possession, attempts to pass their way out of defence ending in real jeopardy. But that made the game even more of a delight.
“Can we play you every week?” is a chant that generally only gets an airing to soundtrack an easy win. When it comes to Spurs against Brighton, Postecoglou against De Zerbi, however, it takes on a new dimension. After the 4-2 mayhem of the game at the Amex in December came another whirligig of attacking intent. A season’s worth of matches between these two would be more than worth the price of entry.
