Tottenham centre-back Micky van de Ven has hinted that he and Cristian Romero were effectively given a short player-manager role during Ange Postecoglou’s time at the club.
Spurs had a nightmare 2024/25 season under Postecoglou in the Premier League with the Australian’s side finishing 17th in the table.
However, Postecoglou did manage to lead Tottenham to their first trophy in 17 years by beating Manchester United in the Europa League final, giving Spurs a place in this season’s Champions League.
It was his form in the Premier League which cost him his job with former Brentford head coach Thomas Frank replacing him over the summer.
Postecoglou’s attacking approach was initially refreshing for Tottenham fans, who wanted to see the club move away from Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte’s more pragmatic styles, but eventually, it became too much.
The former Celtic head coach was against changing his style of play during runs of poor results with Van de Ven and Romero often impacted the most by his attacking football.
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Incredibly, Van de Ven has now revealed that he had to tell Postecoglou to go more defensive after taking the lead in their 1-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in last season’s Europa League quarter-final second leg.
Speaking on The Overlap, Van de Ven revealed: “At one point, we just walked up to the gaffer and said that we need to change some things and play more defensive sometimes.
“We played away at Frankfurt and were 1-0 up, and we can’t keep attacking, we just need to come back and have a low block and make sure we get the three points.
“We sat with him and he agreed with us on some things, and he told us that he expected us two guys to sort this on the pitch – to make sure that this is something everybody knows and to speak to everybody on the pitch.”
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Van de Ven added: “When we were getting further in the Europa League, sometimes we would sit down with him and say, ‘We need to adapt sometimes’. That wasn’t only with him – that was also with his assistant and other coaches.”
On his relationship with the manager, he added: “He is a really good manager – I still really like him. I don’t know how it all went down behind the scenes, winning the Europa League then getting sacked. I didn’t expect Ange to be sacked.
“There were a lot of rumours, and everyone was on Ange, like the media – there was not a day I was scrolling on my phone and saw nothing about our gaffer. There was always something about him.”
On Postecoglou being sacked, Van de Ven continued: “He was the manager that brought silverware to Tottenham – then afterwards when he got sacked, I sent a text to my dad and my friends, and said, ‘I never expected this’. I texted Ange as well and said, ‘All the best in the future.’”
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