Micky van de Ven has been called out by Simon Jordan for publicly making it clear he disagreed with Ange Postecoglou when he was in charge at Tottenham.
Van de Ven and centre-back partner Cristian Romero are two of the most important players at the club. Both members of the leadership group, the pair have put in important performances and led the side with integrity.
At a point last season, when Postecoglou was still in charge at Tottenham, Van de Ven admitted the pair went to the manager to disagree with some of his tactics.
Van de Ven said: “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.”
That game ended up being one of the most conservative of Spurs’ triumphant Europa League campaign, before they beat Bodo/Glimt 3-1 and then 2-0 in the semi-finals and scraped a 1-0 victory – in similar fashion to the Frankfurt game – against Manchester United to secure the silverware.
Van de Ven has since been questioned for publicly undermining Postecoglou, by talkSPORT host Jordan.
“I’m not entirely sure why Van de Ven needs to disclose the content of conversations with the manager. Perhaps to excuse their performances last year.
“It’s interesting that he talks about the fact that the only time they were playing was in the Europa League games… it’s an interesting set of observations.
“In isolation they look very condemnatory of the manager and look like the players are coming out of it without any responsibility for their individual performances on the field.”
Given Van de Ven was directly asked questions around his time playing under Postecoglou, it’s not beyond the realms of belief that he should give some insight into conversations he had with him.
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