Football has changed. Will Ange Postecoglou adapt before it’s too late?

3 hours ago 2

Opinion

October 12, 2025 — 1.41pm

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Jose Mourinho didn’t name any names when he went on an off-season rant about how modern-day managers hide behind poor results by talking about their philosophies.

But to Australian ears, it sounded a little pointed.

“We’re in a generation where we see coaches trying to do things that just don’t work, and they die,” Mourinho told Canal 11, a Portuguese streaming service, a few months ago.

“But they say, ‘I died, but I died with my idea.’ My friend, if you died by your ideas, you are stupid.”

Ange Postecoglou, of course, vowed to “die a noble death” as Tottenham Hotspur manager amid widespread demands for him to change his ways – and a few months later, that fate befell him.

The second time around threatens to be more gruesome.

Mourinho’s comments speak to the prevailing mood in the game. Football is in the midst of an almost populist backlash, a revolt against the age of idealism.

Possession football is over. Having a predominant style is passé. Pragmatism is the new black. The cool kids now change their tactics every week, based on the opposition. Long throw-ins and rugby-style kick-offs are suddenly fashionable. Even Pep Guardiola is parking the bus. Philosophies are for losers; only winning matters.

Postecoglou indulged in some of that darkness in the Europa League last season, partly out of injury-enforced necessity. It’s not his thing, but it served a purpose. Now he’s back where he feels most comfortable: standing proudly in the crossfire.

As football moves in one direction – the same direction Postecoglou’s beloved predecessor at Nottingham Forest, Nuno Espirito Santo, had taken them in, to great success – he is dragging them the other way.

The problem is, Forest are winless after his first seven games, and their own fan base cannot stand the sight of him. You could actually see and hear the masses turning on him the instant they conceded the third goal in their 3-2 defeat to FC Midtjylland in the Europa League last week.

Each day since, they have been praying for him to be gone, and the conversations they are having about him – check social media for yourself – are increasingly nasty and personal.

The personal attacks aside, you can sort of understand why. They never wanted Nuno to leave, and they never wanted Ange to come in. They saw what happened at Spurs from afar – defensive looseness, vulnerability at set pieces, long stretches of domination without reward – and feared it would happen to them. It has.

Postecoglou has made the worst start by a new Forest coach in 100 years. He has suffered the most defeats by any coach in Europe’s top five leagues this calendar year. The solidity they used to have at the back is gone, and after spending most of last season in the UEFA Champions League places, they are now bracing for a relegation battle.

The moment Nottingham Forest fans turned on Ange Postecoglou.

The primary measure of a coach’s success is results. And when the results aren’t there, the coach has to offer up some sort of explanation as to why they’re not winning, and if they’re not going to change, why their ideas should be persisted with.

Postecoglou can point to some other numbers: Forest are No.1 in the Premier League for successful passes in the opponent’s half, passes into the final third, passes into the opponent’s box, and for sequences of 10-plus passes in open play. Plus they’re second for forward passes, and fifth for overall possession. Really, they’re a bit unlucky not to have won at least one of those seven games. So, when Postecoglou insists that the goals will soon come, you can see where he’s coming from, too.

And, you know … it’s only been seven games. If he were to be sacked today, it’d be one of the shortest reigns in Premier League history.

Forest’s dramatic shift in identity, from the comfort of Nunoball to the risk of Angeball, was never going to be smooth, particularly without a pre-season. Complicating matters further is the weight of expectation: owner Evangelos Marinakis hired Postecoglou to win the Europa League. But Forest cannot afford to collapse domestically while chasing Europe, and he has yet to prove he can balance the two.

Postecoglou’s history is another thing that he can point to: his teams usually go through a rough patch when he takes over, and there is always a trophy on the other side. It’s worth grinding through. And really, that’s his big problem, and it explains why he has become such a polarising figure.

In Australia, he is possibly the greatest coach in our sporting history. His achievements speak for themselves. In England, however, his track record is meaningless. To them, his achievements occurred in lesser countries, against easier opponents, and therefore don’t apply. So it becomes a question of, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ And in the Premier League, the truthful answer is: not much. His fifth-placed finish with Tottenham in 2023-24 is basically ancient history. Since then, his teams have lost many games. The conversation ends there.

The believers believe precisely because of what he has achieved in the past, which says to them he can do it again. They see mitigating circumstances at Spurs last season, a disaster that still ended with their first trophy in 17 years. They love the way he stands up for himself and his convictions.

In contrast, the doubters are not prepared to give him any grace because they see no reason to. They are more inclined to view him as someone who has been ‘found out’ at the highest level. They only see the same problems that Spurs had being repeated at Forest.

That makes him more of a target of derision than ever. His bullish press conferences, once refreshing, now strike as hollow; without results, without reason to believe they will come, his sermons sound self-indulgent.

There is one certainty in all of this: Postecoglou won’t change. He will live and die by the same ideas that carried him into the Premier League because they are part of him, for better or worse. Whether they still work, in an era that has moved on from big ideas, is the question that will decide his fate, and perhaps say something about football itself.

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