Negative Spurs narrative can trade with silverware, says Postecoglou

Ange Postecoglou says the one remedy for the anxiousness at Tottenham is for the staff to finish their 17-year stay up for silverware. The supervisor felt the temper throughout the membership’s stadium shift sharply on Thursday night time once they conceded for 3-1 against the tip of the Europa League semi-final first leg towards Bodø/Glimt.

Before that the ambience were superb, the avid gamers responding, however it reputedly does no longer take a lot for the fanatics to start to concern the worst. The tie completed 3-1, which will have to be sufficient for Spurs to navigate Thursday’s go back after Sunday’s Premier League travel to West Ham. Yet there was fearful speak about Bodø’s spectacular house file, the perils in their synthetic floor and the chilly that awaits within the Arctic Circle.

Postecoglou famous that he had additionally felt a “real nervousness in the stadium” when Spurs conceded at house towards AZ within the final 16 and Eintracht Frankfurt within the quarter-final. The concession towards AZ used to be in the second one leg for 2-1 at the night time and 2-2 on combination. Against Frankfurt, it used to be the primary leg and an early purpose that gave the German membership a 1-0 lead.

“People are their experiences and Tottenham supporters have had some real near misses for a long time,” Postecoglou mentioned. “So there’s always this safeguard of not getting too excited about what’s happening, but part of creating a winning culture is not to fall into that trap. Winners don’t think about things in that way; they don’t think about what could possibly go wrong.

“I’ve said before that the narrative around the club is not positive at all. That’s existed for a very long time and you need to break through that. I’m trying to create a culture within the group at least that that can’t guide our destiny because that’s almost self-fulfilling. If you expect something to go wrong, it will.

“I don’t know if it’s a culture in the club; it’s a culture around the club. Obviously if you accept that then you are almost self-prophesying what’s going to happen. I don’t accept that. But with all of these things, there’s really only one remedy: win. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Postecoglou used to be requested whether or not he may regulate what went on outdoor the squad. “No, I can’t control it,” he mentioned. “It’s fair to say I’ve tried but it’s a losing battle because there’s a lot of stuff that feeds into that and people invariably react to it. If you’re feeling insecure about something and you’ve got 20 people telling you that you should be insecure, you’re going to be insecure. So I can’t change that.

“You’ve got to stay very focused on what you can control and we can’t control how people feel, we can’t control the anxiety of … whether it’s our supporters or whatever narrative is around us. What we can control is our behaviours and our performance.”

Postecoglou mentioned Lucas Bergvall used to be out for the remainder of the season with the ankle ligament damage sustained in coaching prior to the Bodø/Glimt recreation. “He went to turn and his ankle gave way,” the chief mentioned. Dominic Solanke and James Maddison had been compelled off all through Thursday’s recreation and if the previous used to be not anything “too serious” – within the phrases of Postecoglou – the latter used to be “more of a concern because it’s the knee”.