Ange Postecoglou’s passionate response to critics in FULL | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou launched into a passionate response to the criticism he has faced this season at Tottenham.

Here’s the best quotes and full transcript from a stunning press conference…

People ‘like the story of a manager being under pressure’

“The scrutiny is more because there’s more noise but that doesn’t mean it needs to affect you. I’ve said many times it doesn’t concern me because I’m not really sure how people perceive this role and particularly me as a person, that they would think I would worry about tomorrow if there’s a negative outcome,” he said.

“I just don’t live my life that way. I don’t speak that way, I don’t think that way. My whole career, I love what I do, I get up every day, take on the challenge, see what the possibilities are and keep moving.

“There’s a lot of noise and I think there’s always two sides to that: one is people doing critical analysis of what I do, others just like the story of a manager being under pressure.

“People get excited about that. Some people really enjoy that process for some bizarre reason. The more they try to push individuals, whether it’s me or anyone else, to that position it generates for them whatever satisfaction they get out of it.

“It doesn’t infiltrate my world, mate. Irrespective of what happened last night I still would have gone home and asked my kids how their [school] concert went. My life goes on mate. It’s not that overwhelming that I feel the need to block it all out or to react to it. It doesn’t bother me.”

‘This doesn’t happen in any other industry’

“Would you ever question their knowledge of that job? Would you ever question whether every decision he makes, he’s thought about it or experienced it before? You might say ok, if you survive 26, 27 years you haven’t stuffed up too many times. Whatever you do.

“If you’re a plumber, if there’s leaks you’re not going to get another job. If you’re a doctor and people are dying, you’re unlikely to kick on. If you’re doing it for 26, 27 years he’s got a fair idea of what he’s doing.

“Then you might say ‘yeah, but maybe he’s just a grinder’. But if that person started pretty much on the factory floor of that industry, whatever industry it was, maybe you’re a CEO or whatever and he ends up in the position where the top 1 per cent of where his profession gets to, you’re gonna say, ‘ok this guy must have something’.

“You don’t get from factory floor to the top 1 per cent in your field, and I’m talking about the level, not expertise. Then you might say, ‘he’s out of his depth now’ and well ok, but if you’ve taken a club that finished eighth to fifth in your first full year… when you put all that together and you hear, ‘he’s out of his depth, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s got no idea, his methods don’t work, his philosophy doesn’t work’ – in any other industry you wouldn’t do that.

‘Google my name and get some headlines’

“You might be critical of his performance but you wouldn’t do that. Google my name and get some headlines. Just plaster them on a wall and you’d say ‘I don’t think that fits somehow’, but it does, because that’s where we’re at.

“Where does that come from? From people, some of whom weren’t even born when I started managing. I started in 1996/97. You’ve just got accept that’s part of the world I’m in. I accept it but I don’t have to react to it. I can just laugh it off because I just think it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t change me as a person. It doesn’t change what I do, what I believe or how I continue to go on – because my career will go on.

“Everyone realises that. Whatever happens my career will go on. So, yeah that’s a long answer isn’t it?”

Mr Hindsight

“I love it. I’m not saying that facetiously. I love the fact there’s a massive challenge there, people are doubting me. I do love it. I also think some of it is just ridiculous beyond its nature of being anything other than cheap and very shallow. I’m not talking about critical analysis.

“Jeez, I’m going on now. I’ve got one more story then I’ll let you go. You know who the greatest nemesis for any manager is in today’s world? He’s only come to the surface in the last five, six years, maybe 10 years? Mr Hindsight.

“He’s the guy who when the outcomes are there and the result is already done, he has all the answers with the greatest of certainty and he’s never wrong. Mr Hindsight will go out there every time and profess to be the oracle of all oracles because he just deals with what’s happened after the event. Never before.

“There is such a massive Mr Hindsight. The Killers should do a song about him, I’d definitely buy it. You want to be critical and have really strong opinions about things? State them before the event. Make them really clear and stand by them when they’re wrong. I guarantee you they’ll be just as wrong as any manager is wrong and probably more often.

“There aren’t many of those. There are some who if they don’t do it before the event, after the event they will always put a perspective on their analysis, but I see them mate and I hear them. After the event – ‘oh, so obvious!’ ‘oh, how did he get that team selection wrong!’

“That’s what I’m saying, anyone can deal with an outcome. You don’t need to even understand football. ‘That team won, that team lost. That coach is better, those players, that system, those selections, they were always going to be better. I could have told you before the game, everything is obvious.’

‘If it’s just results, what’s the point of analysis?’

“What’s the point? If it’s just results, what’s the point of having analysis? Whoever won, you put a column there and everyone writes the same piece there. Whoever lost, a column there, everyone the same piece – these managers are under pressure, these managers are the best. Then flip it the following week because results always go the other way.

“Anyway mate, we should have had this offline. I’ve said too many things I’m going to regret tomorrow!”