Ange Postecoglou’s lone crusade to save sanctity of English football
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Tottenham manager is wondering why nobody else is standing up to increasing role of technology in game. In Ange Postecoglou’s words, uttered a few weeks back, he is not the messiah, just a “naughty little boy”. It was actually not his own work, rather a riff on the famous line from Monty Python’s Life of Brian but the point was well made.
![[David Hytner]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2018/01/10/David_Hytner,_L.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Despite his commitment to doing things differently on the tactical front, to providing exhilaration, even escapism, the Tottenham manager does not want to put himself on a higher plane; to be preachy, holier than thou. And yet there he was on Wednesday night, up on his top table mount after Spurs’ 1-0 win over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semi-final sounding very much as if he had been sent from a parallel universe (Australia) to save the soul of the English game.
![[Stuart Attwell speaks into a microphone at Tottenham.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4b5793653c584d7c444be5a12c6ace7d645cb4a4/135_237_2812_1687/master/2812.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
It is a game he loves, having followed it as a boy back at home, particularly the fortunes of his favourite team – Liverpool. It is one he cares about, which adds a significant layer to his personal story; the Premier League as a long-pursued destination. Now that he has arrived, he is rubbing his eyes in disbelief.
“What is going on?” It is the essence of what Postecoglou practically wants to scream. Nobody knows any more because the game has come to be micromanaged to such a suffocating extent, in the PGMOL corridors of power, in the Stockley Park bunker, that the ability to interpret, to just feel what is correct, has been lost. There is a plague of second-guessing.
It is why, to borrow the phrase that Postecoglou used after his team had lost 2-1 at home to Newcastle in the league on Sunday, the playing field is not “fair and even”. It is overbearing to the point of unpredictability. And if Postecoglou has to be the man to call it out, the only person to do so, to hold up the mirror for everybody to peer into, then so be it.
