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Ange Postecoglou is determined to break Tottenham’s current cycle of inconsistency.
Spurs tasted defeat at Bournemouth on Thursday night to continue their Jekyll and Hyde results this season amid unsavoury scenes as a minority of the club’s away support hurled abuse at Postecoglou at full time.
Outstanding wins over Manchester United, Aston Villa and Manchester City have been coupled with flat displays in defeats to Crystal Palace and Ipswich during a run of seven victories from their last 14 matches in all competitions.
Next up is a London derby at home to high-flying Chelsea and while 10th-place Tottenham continue to battle with a spate of unavailability, Postecoglou will not accept their current form.
He said: “It doesn’t sit well with me. Nor should it. I’m not going to accept it. My role within that and my responsibility is to change that because if we’re going to get to where I want us to get to, we need to break that cycle of not showing the belief and resilience in key moments.
“Nothing has changed in terms of my resolve to play the type of football I want to play and be that kind of team.
“It’s just that we haven’t understood the other side of that and that is the discipline and resilience to overcome difficult moments, so that the football we have can come through.
“When we have won this year, we have been pretty compelling. It’s not just struggling victories. Every game we have won, we have been very dominant and exactly the team we want to be.
“So, we have shown the potential of what we can be but that kind of gets diminished by performances like (Bournemouth).”
From the moment since I’ve come in, I have the ability and the opportunity to change things so that’s what I am endeavouring to do.
Ange Postecoglou
A regular stick to beat Tottenham with is the ‘Spursy’ tag which has followed the club amid a trophy drought going back to 2008.
Ex-Celtic boss Postecoglou, who could have vice-captain Cristian Romero back on Sunday, pointed out this season’s wins in Manchester should show there is not a mentality issue at Spurs.
However, the 59-year-old acknowledged performances like at Bournemouth will do little to dissuade their detractors ahead of a crucial fixture with Chelsea, who won 4-1 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last season in an extraordinary match where the hosts’ finished with nine-men but almost snatched a point.
Postecoglou added: “It’s a funny one because if you talk about mentality, you’d think mentality would be ‘well, against the big teams, you come up short.’
“I didn’t go into this job where I felt there was something institutionalised here that would stop this club having success. I just don’t think that way.
“I think everything while I am here is in my control. So, I’m not going to palm off responsibility to whatever we’re going through to things that have existed in the past.
“From the moment since I’ve come in, I have the ability and the opportunity to change things so that’s what I am endeavouring to do. The key is to understand that Bournemouth is not a lesser team. They have beaten City and Arsenal at home.
“So, we knew it was a tough game, particularly in the spell we are in at the moment where we have a lot of football with a thin squad.
“We prepared ourselves for a tough game, that was going to be tougher than any other game we were going to face last night and the disappointing thing is, like I said, that in a game where we started well, we once again allowed the opposition to play the game on their terms by us lacking discipline and conviction in a key moment. And we can’t keep doing that.”
