‘Manager of the year’ Postecoglou and his Spurs side need to remind us what they are

Ange Postecoglou gave a pithy response to being named manager of the year at the London Football Awards on Thursday night.

‘Did you all vote on this in November?’

Very on-brand, that. Funny, to the point, self-deprecating. Perceptive on a level that is almost uncomfortable.

Because that’s what’s happened here, surely. It wouldn’t be entirely fair to say the wheels have come off for Spurs since November, but certainly the early sheen of Angeball is no longer there.

It really has been quite a long time since they’ve produced a decent complete performance. The 4-1 win over Newcastle maybe? It probably is. That game was well over two months ago now. Probably after everyone cast their manager of the year vote.

We might be wrong, but we get a sense that Spurs rather complacently felt that getting the band back together after all their injury and suspension problems would automatically make it the autumn again with performances and results to match. Results had, until a pretty limp surrender against Wolves, been okay. But that was a defeat that any Spurs fan could tell you had been coming after a run of unconvincing home wins against Everton, Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton.

And they’ve won only once at all away from home since a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace at the end of their dream start to the season back in early November. They face the Eagles again this weekend in what is suddenly a pretty important game.

Spurs sat out last weekend with their scheduled fixture against Chelsea postponed due to the Carabao final. That combined with the Wolves defeat and back-to-back wins for Aston Villa leaves them suddenly five points adrift of the top four ahead of a game against the Villans next weekend.

Palace in the midst of new-manager bounce and that Villa game are suddenly potentially decisive matches for the entire season. We don’t yet know for sure whether fourth or fifth will be the cut-off for next season’s Champions League, but we can be reasonably sure that if Spurs finish fifth they will have needed to finish fourth. Because Spurs.

Oliver Glasner is, we suspect, going to prove a pretty astute appointment by Palace and he’s certainly lifted the mood. But Palace at home is not just a winnable game for Spurs, it’s one in which they simply have to also give us a performance that shows the giddiness of the autumn wasn’t entirely illusory.

The football just isn’t anywhere near as fun as it was, and hasn’t been for really quite some time. Against Wolves, dare we say it, it was almost Conte-like. James Maddison has returned from injury nothing like the player who was probably the standout in the entire division before limping off on that fateful night against Chelsea. Neal Maupay has won.

Spurs remain bafflingly on course to become only the second team in Barclays history to score in every game of a season, but the football comes only in patches now rather than irresistible waves. The 10 minutes after half-time against Brentford were a reminder of what they can do to anyone when it all clicks, but for the most part the last six weeks has been spent waiting for a click that never really comes.

Most worrying of all, though, was the aftermath of the Wolves game. Postecoglou’s “I’m not a magician, mate” was just the first slight glimpse of a manager reaching the inevitable point in the Spurs managerial lifecycle of growing sick with the players at his disposal. While that moment is inevitable, it has come far earlier than anyone could have predicted back in the autumn.

It’s not all doom and gloom and nothing is f***ed. Postecoglou is still in his first season and deserves far more patience than we’re affording here. The season as a whole still represents positive and definitive progress. But still, Postecoglou and his team are either in the midst of an extended funk that needs snapping out of quick smart, or they’ve been worked out. If it’s the latter, they’re in trouble.