Son preaches total focus on Tottenham's Europa League title chances
Son preaches total focus on Tottenham's Europa League title chances
The Tottenham player emphasized that the team needs to focus on this final, as you never know when another opportunity will come along.
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Spurs need to make a decision on Ange Postecoglou now, so they can plan for next season
Tottenham Hotspur are stuck in a state of paralysis… and it is entirely their own fault. While their rivals have acted swiftly in the early days of the summer transfer market, Tottenham have still not even decided who will be their head coach/manager next season. Two weeks after they lifted their first trophy in 17 years after beating Manchester United in the Europa League final, Ange Postecoglou has no idea if he will be around for a third campaign in charge. Advertisement The Athletic reported in March that there were serious doubts about Postecoglou's long-term future and that Spurs had identified Bournemouth's Andoni Iraola, Brentford head coach Thomas Frank and Fulham's Marco Silva as potential replacements. Tottenham lost 22 of ther 38 Premier League games last season and finished 17th, above only the three relegated sides, as they struggled to cope with a crippling injury crisis. Victory in that Europa League final changed everything, though, and united the fanbase. All of the players have spoken warmly about their bond with Postecoglou and how he kept them motivated last season when everybody else doubted their ability to win. For many people associated with Spurs, their domestic form during that campaign is completely irrelevant now. When visitors Brighton & Hove Albion scored their final goal in a 4-1 win on the last weekend of the top-flight season, four days after that triumph in Bilbao, the entire crowd stood and started singing When The Spurs Go Marching In. That powerful emotional connection will be damaged if the club now cut ties with Postecoglou. Brighton have just scored their fourth goal but the Spurs fans are still loudly chanting for their team 🎶 — Jay Harris (@jaydmharris) May 25, 2025 The Australian, 59, is currently on holiday with his family in Greece, hoping to be allowed to continue the four-year contract he signed when appointed in summer 2023. For all of Postecoglou's flaws, he inherited a declining Son Heung-min, revolutionised Spurs' playing style, lowered the squad's age, coped without the recently-sold Harry Kane and has returned the club to the Champions League. The problem is Tottenham's form since the infamous 4-1 defeat to Chelsea in November 2023 has been awful. They have lost 34 out of 66 matches and earned 78 points. If you exclude the six relegated teams across the past two seasons, that is the third-worst record in the division during that time, ahead of only Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Advertisement This situation has dragged on for too long. Chairman Daniel Levy was on holiday too last week, and while it is understandable that Tottenham's senior figures wanted to process their emotions following their Europa League success, they should have come to a much quicker conclusion. Maybe Spurs are trying to avoid a repeat of what happened when they sacked Jose Mourinho in the April of the 2020-21 campaign. Mourinho left a couple of days before the Carabao Cup final, which they lost to Manchester City under interim replacement Ryan Mason. The club then spent the next 10 weeks assessing different candidates, including Erik ten Hag, Paulo Fonseca, Hansi Flick, their former manager Mauricio Pochettino and future head coach Antonio Conte, before they appointed Nuno Espirito Santo on June 30. Nuno lasted only four months before he was replaced with Conte. In March 2023, Conte was out the door. Arne Slot, then at Dutch club Feyenoord and now a debut-season title winner with Liverpool, turned them down before they eventually appointed Scottish champions Celtic's manager Postecoglou. Could it be that Spurs want to have the next man lined up before they put Postecoglou out of his misery? Or are they assessing their head coach's qualities and determining whether it would actually be better to keep him around? If Postecoglou does stay, the torrent of speculation over the past couple of weeks could undermine his position. Ten Hag found himself in a similar situation last summer after winning the FA Cup with Manchester United. Ahead of that final, the Dutchman had seemed destined to leave. United's senior figures then apparently changed their minds, only to sack him in October. The worst thing Spurs could do is make this decision based on their current feelings, then regret it in a few months. Advertisement This delay will be negatively impacting their transfer business, too. United have signed Matheus Cunha, Chelsea agreed a deal with Ipswich Town for Liam Delap and Liverpool brought in Jeremie Frimpong from Bayer Leverkusen. Spurs were interested in Brentford forward Bryan Mbeumo but he prefers a move to Old Trafford despite United's own dismal season. Why would anybody move to Tottenham right now when there is so much uncertainty? If Postecoglou is eventually retained, they have wasted valuable time in terms of identifying and working on potential signings who can improve the squad. If a new head coach takes over, he might like and need completely different players. Spurs signed Mathys Tel on loan with an option to buy from Bayern Munich in the winter window. The young striker struggled to impress in his first few months but showed flashes of his potential. Why would Tel commit his future to Tottenham when he has no idea if Postecoglou, the man who convinced him to join, will be there next season? The same applies to other members of the squad. Son, Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur will all be in the final 12 months of their contracts within weeks. Cristian Romero has two years left on his but has publicly talked about the possibility of moving to Spain's La Liga. These players need to know what direction the club are heading in and who will be leading the way. It is the opposite approach to Real Madrid. The Spanish giants made it clear to targets Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dean Huijsen during negotiations that Xabi Alonso would be replacing the departing Carlo Ancelotti. The longer Spurs take to come to a conclusion on this, the more damage they could inflict on their 2025-26 season. Their pre-season schedule has them facing Arsenal in Hong Kong on July 31, then Newcastle United in South Korea before travelling to Germany for a friendly with Bayern. They then have the small matter of the UEFA Super Cup against Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain in Udine, Italy on August 13. These games might seem far off today, but Postecoglou, or his replacement, will need as much time as possible to prepare for them and implement his vision for a challenging campaign ahead. Advertisement Postecoglou changes his backroom staff at every job to keep things fresh, but most managers and head coaches are the complete opposite. Any potential replacement would probably want at least one of his assistants to join him in north London, which might drag out the situation for a little bit longer. Whether you believe in Postecoglou's philosophy or not, everybody can agree that he has been placed in an unfair situation. As he tries to relax with his family in the Greek sunshine, he is still patiently waiting for the phone call which will reveal his fate.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Best moments from Spurs' Europa League parade
Bruno Fernandes after Europa League final defeat: 'Everyone has to look at themselves' Manchester United skipper Bruno Fernandes has demanded that he and his teammates have to look in the mirror following the Europa League final heartbreak vs. Tottenham Hotspur.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Bayern back on top as Schick shines brightest: the Bundesliga season review
Team of the season It's Bayern Munich, despite Mainz and Freiburg, unexpected troublers of the European places, deserving praise for their stratospheric improvement from 2023-24. The Rekordmeister is rarely more provoked than when presented with serious opposition, and Xabi Alonso's Bayer Leverkusen had done just that with last term's domestically unbeaten double-winning exploits. Leverkusen were still excellent but could simply not match Bayern's pace in the end. They played with dazzle but Vincent Kompany also did the one thing that was beyond Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel in beginning to sort out Bayern's leaky defence, conceding their lowest total in the Bundesliga (32) since Hansi Flick's treble-winning season of 2019-20. He also made them competitive in the Champions League, in which they were unlucky to lose to Inter. Player of the season There can be reasonable shouts for Bayern's Michael Olise in a stellar first Bundesliga season, his teammates Harry Kane and Jamal Musiala, Mainz's Jonathan Burkhardt (whose brilliant season propelled him into the Germany side), Serhou Guirassy in continuing to score consistently domestically and continentally for Borussia Dortmund as their season fell apart – all while acknowledging that it probably would have been Omar Marmoush had he not left Eintracht Frankfurt for Manchester City in January. Advertisement The prize, though, goes to Patrik Schick, a player whose body has consistently rebelled against his elite talent but who was Leverkusen's motor through much of a season when few thought he would be a key player. Schick scored 21 Bundesliga goals despite starting only 19 matches (albeit with 12 substitute appearances tacked on) and they were, as per his varied palette, goals of all sorts, with left, right and head. As with last season, he had his share of clutch moments, notably the stoppage-time winner in the comeback victory at Stuttgart in March, as well as a brace in the win at Dortmund. It was a delight to see him at his best again. Coach of the season While Kompany's first season worked well and Bo Henriksen transformed Mainz, there can only be one choice: Freiburg's Julian Schuster began the campaign with an impossible job in succeeding Christian Streich – the Bundesliga's longest-serving coach, club legend after almost three decades of continuous service, perpetual overachiever and beloved philosopher – when stepping into his first head coaching role. He missed out on Champions League qualification on the final day but returned the Black Forest club to the Europa League with 13 points more won than in the previous season; a remarkable achievement. Schuster was modest about his efforts, handing Streich much of the credit after that final-day loss to Eintracht Frankfurt. 'What I was able to learn from Christian is still deeply embedded in me,' he said, 'and without him I wouldn't be sitting here.' The club's chief financial officer, Oliver Leki, spoke for many when he said Schuster 'was already a bit of a coach as a player' and while the club deserves credit for having plotted the succession plan so well, the rave reviews Schuster gets from his players says all that needs to be said. Game of the season Get ready to catcall; the Leverkusen-Bayern goalless draw in February stands out. It was the game that the title race hinged on, with Florian Wirtz's incredible miss in stoppage time allowing Bayern to escape with a draw and to have the breathing space that defined the rest of the title race. It had been an exhilarating match (despite the lack of goals), run by Wirtz, dominated by Leverkusen from start to finish and a testament to their remarkably high standards when a significant drop-off from their historic double-winning season would have been understandable. Advertisement If goals are more your thing (which is forgivable) then Holstein Kiel's 4-3 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach – their 4-2 win over Dortmund in January was in with a shout as well – in which they lost a two-goal lead and a 3-2 lead before the excellent Shuto Machino hit the winner in stoppage time, was thrilling. Kiel were one of the high points of the season, top-flight first-timers and heavy favourites to be relegated before a ball was kicked yet competitive for most of the campaign and the Michael Myers of the Bundesliga season who kept coming back even when it looked as if they were done, until the drop was confirmed in their penultimate game. Goal of the season Here comes our first bit of rule-bending. Olise's solo goal against Shakhtar is not a Bundesliga goal, having come in the Champions League, even if it was scored by a Bundesliga team on a ground (with the Ukrainian club playing this season's European games at Schalke) but it demands mention, with the France international gliding through a host of defenders before sitting the goalkeeper down and stroking the ball home. If we want to be more strict, let's go back to the first goal of the Bundesliga season because there is nothing quite like a Granit Xhaka piledriver from range, this one coming against his former club Mönchengladbach. Shock of the season Arminia Bielefeld had a Rolodex of them. While winning the Michél Kniat's team knocked out four Bundesliga sides on their way to the DFB Pokal final in Berlin – most notably Leverkusen, who were unbelievably denied the season consolation prize of retaining the cup by Maximilian Grosser's back-post volley on an unbelievable April night in the semi-finals. Arminia couldn't quite get it done against Stuttgart in the final (though they did hit the woodwork at 0-0 before the Swabians took control) but it has still been a historic season for the club. Comeback of the season Dortmund's rally from 10 points behind the top four with eight games left to snatching a Champions League place on the final day was special (Lars Ricken dizzily claimed Niko Kovac's work was 'one of the greatest coaching achievements in the history of BVB'), but the return of Friedhelm Funkel was even more out of leftfield. The 71-year-old stepped back into the FC Köln head coach's position with two games of the second-tier season left and Effzeh wobbling within sight of the finishing line, which led to the dramatic double sacking of coach Gerhard Struber and sporting director Christian Keller. They won the last two, clinched the title and with the party clear-up still ongoing Funkel was off again, seemingly piqued that the board were hesitating over offering him the permanent position for next season. It was fun anyway, totally in keeping with the mania of the club – and Funkel made €250,000 for his brief intervention of a third spell there. Quotes of the season
