Whatever your view of Ange Postecoglou and his stubborn refusal, a single significant exception aside, to countenance his teams playing in anything other than a high-intensity, risk-reward, attack-at-all-costs style, one thing is undeniable.
English football, the modern game in general, has been a lot less entertaining in the six months since he departed Nottingham Forest.
Read part two of our Ange Postecoglou sit down - on Celtic, Forest and Martin O'Neill
And not just because clips of his box office press conference performances are no longer going viral online, mate.
The tactical homogenisation of the sport down south and across Europe has led to increasing unhappiness among supporters. Disillusioned fans have grown weary of dull micro-managed sides building play slowly from the back, concentrating on retaining possession and relying on set pieces to score.
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The Premier League statistics tell the sorry story; the 2025/26 season has seen the second lowest ball in play time in 20 years, a 100 per cent increase in long throws, the fewest open play goals in over a decade, a substantial rise in goals netted at corners and free-kicks and the average delay before play restarts going up to 29.2 seconds.
It is little wonder that many frustrated punters have spurned the overhyped top flight and turned their attention to the lower leagues in the hope of seeing fun fixtures which set their pulses racing once again.
But fear not. Postecoglou may have a solution. The Greek-Australian revealed he has been formulating a plan to save the sport from set pieces and stoppages since exiting Forest and is excited at the prospect of putting it into practice when he attended the UEFA Pro Licence Student Exchange programme at Nyon in Switzerland earlier this week.
“I’ve seen all these cycles before and they are cycles,” said the UEFA technical observer after delivering a talk to a group of young coaches from Belarus, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Montenegro and Scotland in the House of European Football.
“The Premier League is now going through a cycle where it is very hard to gain momentum and fluency in a game because of stoppages — some natural, some artificial, some due to technology, some because of set pieces.
“But the beauty of football is that somebody will break that mould, have success and the game will take off onto that path. That’s what I love about the game. There’s so many different ways to approach it, play it, have success in it. My view has always been there’s no right or wrong way, there’s just different ways like everything else.
“We enjoy all different cuisines. When we go out to a restaurant, we don’t just eat Japanese every night because you’d get sick of it if you did. That’s what each manager can bring. You can bring your own football or vision to it.
“So, yeah, the Premier League at the moment is very structured. It is very hard to gain momentum. It’s been gradually coming over the past couple of years. The sort of rock and roll or heavy metal football of Jurgen [former Liverpool manager Klopp] is almost impossible to do now because of how many stoppages there are in the game.
“Listen, that’s the beauty of the game. That’s what I love about the game, that’s what we should embrace about the game. There’s no wrong way. If a team takes that approach they shouldn’t be criticised if they have that success. It’s up to the others to figure out a way to break that down.”
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Postecoglou added, “Somebody clever enough will come along and say, ‘I’ll show you how to break through’. Yeah, absolutely [it can be overcome]. I’ve already got my ideas about how to do that. I think there’s ways to break through that. Just watch this space.
“I’ve always felt like whenever you approach a new role, you take a look at what the competition is doing and if you’re going to make an impact and inroads. There’s no point doing what everyone else is doing, because they’re already 50 metres down the track.
“You’ve got to try and create your own path and look and say, ‘How can we take advantage of what they do through the way we want to play?’. There are ways you can minimise the disruption in games when you have control of the game, ways you can maintain momentum in the game while the opposition are trying to suck it out.
“It isn’t a massive departure, it's just little tweaks which are constantly happening in the game. It’s what I love. You watch other teams and what they're doing, top teams and not so top, and you say, ‘I reckon I can grab that and put it into what we’re doing’. It’s not a fully-formed plan yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out.”
Will a leading English club be prepared to take a chance on Postecoglou given how disastrous his brief stint at Forest was this season? The former Celtic manager was in situ at the City Ground for just 39 days, the second shortest reign in Premier League history.
His time at Spurs may, though, entice someone. Yes, the North London club finished a lowly 17th in the league last term and then sacked the man in charge. But the 60-year-old had a crippling injury list to contend with. He also won, after momentarily abandoning his usual game plan, the Europa League thanks to a 1-0 win over Manchester United in Bilbao.
Big Ange, as he was affectionately known during his trophy-laden spell in this country, has not been short of offers. But none of them have appealed to him. He will, having been burned working under his notoriously volatile compatriot Evangelos Marinakis, the obscenely wealthy shipping magnate who has been described as a “walking hand grenade” in the past, be extremely careful about where he moves next. He will do his due diligence before he commits himself to a full-time role again.
“I told the young coaches on the pro licence student exchange programme that choosing the right club is important,” he said. “Even if you're an old coach like me, you have still got to try and make the right decisions.
“A big part of it is understanding the people you're going work with. Because that can be separate from the club. The club is an institution that's been there for a century and beyond. The people who are actually involved in that club at that time are the most important thing.
“Is the connection there? Do they know what you're about and what you're going to bring to the table? Or is it just because you're available or are the next hottest thing as a manager? Whatever it is, I think it's important to have an understanding of the people you're going to work with.
“Those conversations are really important when you're deciding on the next role. Even then, there's no guarantees in any of that because the landscape changes so quickly. Sometimes, you look at the club and think, ‘Oh, it's a great club to work for’. But then maybe the people who are involved at the club at that time aren't the right people for you.
“It's important that clubs start employing people who support the coach, the manager, because it's such an all-encompassing role. It's not just about coaching. I did 130 press conferences last year, and it becomes an important aspect of the role. You can't say, ‘I'm not doing it’. So it's part of your role.”
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Postecoglou continued, “I think what's really important – probably more important now than when I first started – is for all young coaches to have somebody in their life they can bounce things off.
“Having somebody in your life you can rely on to give you feedback if you're ever straying from what you believe in is important. They can bring you back into line. Whether that's a mentor, somebody in your life, or in the club, that becomes important.
“Because there's so much external noise, sometimes internal noise, that you can lose yourself, especially if you're young. It's different for me. I’m a bit older so nothing is going to budge me from who I am. But if you're younger I think it's important.”
Postecoglou’s bruising experiences at both Spurs and Forest are unlikely to make him abandon his attacking philosophies – and English football may be thankful for that if he makes a Premier League comeback in the months ahead.
“The world is changing, absolutely,” he said. “The football world is reflecting that. There's less propensity for people to be patient and build. But I still think the real successes will only come if you're prepared to be really strong in your principles and try to embed them from day one.
“The reality is, none of us know how much time we have at any club. I think I did 101 games with Spurs, won a trophy in my 100th game, and still got sacked. If you worry about the uncertainty of it, I don't think the right time ever comes.
“The right time is always for me at the beginning, that's where you've got to embed your principles. Ignore whatever the timeline may or may not be, because ultimately that's what you believe in.
“I love football that’s fast-paced, that creates chances and that scores goals and is played a certain way. If I failed to deliver that, then that’s on me, not on the other teams to allow me to do that.
“As I said to the coaches, and I constantly say, people need to see in you a conviction about something, for them to follow what you want them to do. That can only happen if you’re true to yourself on the first day.
“Invariably, whenever you’re at a club or doing a job there’s going to be some tough times. But if you don’t have those foundational values or something to believe in during those tough times then you won’t get through to the other side.”
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