Everything is going swimmingly for Ange Postecoglou and Tottenham at the moment.
Spurs are unbeaten, top of the league, and have scored in every game – the team’s greatest start to a Premier League season since 1980.
On Saturday night, a 10-man Tottenham escaped with a goal from Micky van de Ven, his first since joining the club from Wolfsburg in the summer.
Postecoglou though had a cheeky response when a journalist asked him about the defender’s goal, describing it as a “great finish”.
“Was it?” Postecoglou laughed.
“I thought he just toe-poked it. I’ve got a higher standard. It was a fantastic finish but I don’t think there’ll be many highlights of it moving forward.”
The assist from James Maddison in the lead-up to the goal was certainly highlight-reel stuff though, with the new Tottenham recruit surgically piercing through the Luton Town defence before getting the ball through a tight window for van de Ven to put it home.
It continued an impressive start to Maddison’s Spurs career, having won the Premier League’s player of the month award for August.
“He played some great balls though and opened them up with Sonny and then in the second half we were going to need his clever thinking and outside of the box thinking to create something.
“Mase [Ryan Mason] works really hard with the guys on set-pieces and he’s always said that if it’s on early, get an early corner or set-piece and you can see Madders’ brain working in that moment before they’re organised and it creates a bit of magic for Micky to score.
“He’s been great but I think he’d be the first to say that that’s on the back of a lot of hard work from all the guys. He’s allowed to play the game he wants and he has to work hard as well but he’s got a lot of guys alongside him making sure he gets the ball in the right areas and making runs for him to do what he does.”
There were warnings before a ball had been kicked that Tottenham fans may have to be patient with results under Postecoglou given the slow start he had at Celtic.
The opposite, however, has proven true but the Australian isn’t getting too far ahead of himself regardless.
“Yeah I don’t know… I said from the start I don’t have some sort of measurement I go along to say this is our progress,” Postecoglou said.
“Every job I’ve gone into I kind of go in there with an open mind about what we do. And you’re right sometimes the results haven’t been there but I’ve always seen growth in terms of the football team wherever I’ve been even if the results weren’t there.
“This time results are there, that’s great but that doesn’t change me or change where I think we are in terms of our growth. I still think we’re at the beginning and we need to push on. So I don’t get driven by the results in this early stage.
“What drives me is our football and it’s fair to say the lads, the way they’re playing and the way they’ve embraced the way we’re playing has helped. I think our recruitment has been outstanding. You look at every player we’ve signed and they’re making an impact.
“That needs to happen. Sometimes that doesn’t always happen, which slows down the process. We had to get that right and there’s plenty of evidence to show we’ve got it right. So that’s helped I think.”
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