Ange Postecoglou has offered his support to a Tottenham side determined to remain unperturbed by external factors after they took a “significant step” in trying to turn things around this season.
Postecoglou scored in a 3-1 win over AZ Alkmaar on Thursday to keep Spurs in the Europa League quarter-finals and in the hunt for success.
A winter injury crisis saw Tottenham drop down the Premier League table, while exits from both domestic cup competitions in February increased the pressure on Postecoglou, for whom the AZ game was a make or break affair.
Spurs have responded enthusiastically to the move by setting up a quarter-final tie with Eintracht Frankfurt in April, but they first travel to London to face Fulham and the Australian has paid tribute to his team under fire.
“It's always a challenge. The reality is that you never achieve 100 percent success,” Postecoglou reflected when asked about external pressure.
“Today’s young people, unless they are isolated, are exposed to this world in one way or another, whether through social media or interacting with others, but I have always maintained that I have never felt that the group of players has split or lost confidence in what we do.
“I haven't felt that. It's important to me because I've mentioned a few times as a manager, especially in difficult situations, it can be a very isolated existence where you feel like you're the only person in the boat rowing in one direction, but I've never felt that way from the players.
“Even (on Thursday) we were aware of the importance of this evening, not from any other point of view than in terms of the desire for progress, because we believe there is a huge opportunity in Europe, but if things had gone wrong the noise would have been even louder.
“I felt they handled it really well. Even though it was 0-0, they kept control of the game, we scored one goal, kept control, scored another goal, kept control, even when they scored we went ahead and scored a great goal.
“It's a credit to them. Even though it's a quarter-final of a European tournament, it's not a trophy, but for this club it doesn't happen often, so I still think it's a big step, I think.”
Postecoglou also launched a heated defense of his methods against “cheap and superficial” critics during a lengthy press conference on Friday.
He added: “I like that there is a huge challenge, people doubting my abilities. I like that. I also think some of it is just comical, beyond common sense, which is nothing but cheap and superficial. I'm not talking about constructive criticism.
“You know who the biggest enemy of any manager in the modern world is? He has only become noticeable in the last five, six years, maybe ten years? Mr. Hindsight.
“There's this huge Mr. Hindsight. The Killers should write a song about him, and I'd definitely buy it.
“Anyway, buddy, we should have discussed this offline. I said too many things that I'll regret tomorrow!”
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
