Leading English sportswriter torn to shreds over 'weird', 'oddly personal' Ange Postecoglou attack

A leading English sportswriter is being torn up by pundits on social media over a "weird" hit job on Ange Postecoglou.

The Aussie manager was sacked by Tottenham last week despite leading Spurs to a Europa League trophy barely a fortnight earlier.

Many within the game have thrown their support behind the former Socceroos boss and instead aimed their frustration at club management for the bewildering decision.

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But The Guardian's award-winning columnist Jonathan Liew took a very different approach, going after Postecoglou in a strongly worded summary of his time as Tottenham manager.

The pair had gone head-to-head at Postecoglou press conferences in the past and the journalist didn't waste his opportunity to kick the coach on his way out the door.

"(He) always bristled at the idea that his wealth of coaching experience had somehow been earned in inferior competitions, perhaps his departure from Tottenham really can be a kind of springboard: to one of these prestigious, equally demanding leagues he keeps talking about," Liew wrote.

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"Maybe the struggling Gamba Osaka. Perth Glory could well have a vacancy soon. Motherwell are still looking. A step down? That's just your old-world, Eurocentric, Prem-brained snobbery showing right through there, mate.

"Perhaps it was only in this universe – the post-truth universe – that such a feat was even conceivable. Along with the Europa League trophy he so stunningly spirited to north London, this may turn out to be the defining legacy of the Postecoglou interregnum.

"There have been better Premier League managers. There have been more charming and more entertaining Premier League managers. But there may never have been a manager better at defining his own terms of achievement; a managerial reign so evidently built upon a towering silo of nuclear-strength bullshit.

"A coach who urged us to judge him on the league now no longer judges himself on the league. A coach who blames Tottenham's abject league performance on a freak injury crisis also takes no responsibility for that injury crisis, for a style of play in which Tottenham comfortably spend more time in high-intensity sprints than any other Premier League team.

"A coach who claims he takes no notice of what is said and written about him has spent a suspiciously high proportion of this season reacting to things that have been said and written about him.

"A 57-year-old Australian bullshits his way into a Premier League job, to spectacular away wins at Manchester City and Manchester United, to some of the most entertaining football ever seen from a Tottenham team in my lifetime."

Liew previously attacked Postecoglou on a podcast in 2023.

"I'm not having Ange Postecoglou. As a coach, I can't stand him," he said at the time.

The latest Liew column has been met with fierce backlash online, with the Spurs Army X account calling his piece "awfully weird" and others highlighting the "oddly personal" nature of his attack.

His piece went on to point out sacking Postecoglou was "a big error" from Tottenham, but then he sarcastically suggests the manager is set for "a step up in class to the Greek Super League, the Korean K League, the League of Ireland".

Postecoglou has a habit of biting back at journalists during his press conferences, most recently calling out a journalist - not Liew - for writing he would be "a clown" if Tottenham lost the Europa League final.