. The alternatives are hardly more palatable
There was a tender moment at the end of Tottenham’s win against Elfsborg on Thursday night as Ange Postecoglou walked out on to the pitch looking a little haunted and jittery, a strange kind of light in his eyes. It took a few seconds to work out what was up. The reason for this was he was happy. Here was a man remembering how to smile, willing his face into the right kind of shape, searching for the muscle memory.
It was also a nice moment. The recent run of Bad Ange stuff, the Ange who does interviews like a policeman standing too close to you in a tiny lift, has been painful to watch. The Premier League is brutal. It will stretch you thin. And it has been rough with Postecoglou, who came with no comparable experience, who is 59 years old, and has had the air of a man finding the end of his reach, radiating sadness from every rain-sodden panel of his quilted coat.
Spurs were set up for another bad night on Thursday, stuck at 0-0 in the second half, with the TV cameras cutting hungrily between Postecoglou and a group of bored-looking cool guys in baggy clothes slumped on a bench, which turned out to be an example of the new trend for parading your injured players like captured gladiators. At which point something good happened instead. A 20-year-old scored. Then a 19-year-old scored. Then a 17-year-old scored. Spurs ended the night in the last 16 of the Europa League, with a Carabao Cup semi-final second leg and a fourth-round FA Cup tie to come.
The players got to hug each other in front of a happy crowd. Ange smiled his smile, wandering around looking, as ever, like a bear that has only just realised it’s not supposed to be wearing a raincoat and walking on its hind legs. Even Glenn Hoddle was out on the pitch telling the TV cameras about “finishing with aplomb”.
And yes, this is an excuse to talk about Daniel Levy and the state of Spurs …
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