As Ange Postecoglou dug his heels in a little deeper and reiterated he is not a man for changing, it appeared increasingly likely that something might have to give at Tottenham.

Postecoglou suggested that nobody at Spurs will remember the angry night at Bournemouth, the home defeat by Ipswich Town and any other slip-ups if they stick to his plan and come out the other side.

The problem with that is chairman Daniel Levy is not a man with a track record of sticking to a plan, as proved by the way he has hired and fired managers and head coaches over the past 23 years.

When the fans have turned, so has Levy, regardless of the plan – just ask Postecoglou’s three predecessors, Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho and Nuno Espírito Santo. Levy did not even wait for the fans to turn on Mauricio Pochettino to change course at the first sign of real trouble.

Another defeat against London rivals Chelsea on Sunday could increase the levels of dissent in the stands, which means Levy – Tottenham’s immovable beast – will have to change his usual approach to avoid ripping up the club’s latest project ahead of time.

Postecoglou has no interest in devising a Plan B, blaming others or giving up his principles to try to save his skin. The 59-year-old will fall on his sword if he has to, but clearly thinks he can still be an irresistible force at Spurs.

Asked on Friday about the criticism he faces for being too stubborn, Postecoglou said: “I’ve had 26 years of that. I come in here and can only be myself and answer questions the way I want to if I really believe in what I’m doing. I’m not going to change my values, my beliefs, my sense of purpose or the way I do things because then I can’t come in here to defend what I’m doing. I can defend this until the day I’m gone if I’m doing it my way.

“It’s not unusual for me. It’s not unique and sometimes you kind of understand people are going to see what we’re doing in that light and say, ‘Well why don’t you change?’ Change to what? Change to something somebody else is doing or somebody else did? I was brought here to do it my way. Otherwise what’s the point of me being here?

“Nothing’s changed in terms of my resolve to play the football I want to play and be that kind of team. It’s just that we haven’t understood the other side of that and that’s the discipline and resilience to overcome difficult moments so that football we have can come through.

“When we’ve won this year we’ve been pretty compelling. It’s not been struggling victories. Just about every game we’ve won we’ve been very, very dominant and the team we want to be. So we’re showing the potential of what we want to be, but that gets diminished by performances like the one at Bournemouth.

“I’m sure at other clubs, if you stick to a plan and get through difficult moments, there’s dissension among supporters in these moments. You forget about that when you’re on the other side. Yeah, it’s about winning but it’s about belief as well in what you’re doing sometimes. You look beyond the results, I think. That’s what happened at the start of my tenure last year. We lost against Chelsea, but there was a sense that we were building something. Obviously, it kind of went off the rails after that game. It’s not just about winning, but where we are right now it will certainly help.”

While Postecoglou has left the onus very much on Levy to decide whether he can tough it out in the belief better times will arrive, the Australian has not attempted to deflect any blame or responsibility for the position Tottenham find themselves in.

He passed up what might have been an easy potshot over the club’s transfer strategy, which led Tottenham to replace experienced players with youngsters in the summer, and insisted he does not need to share out the pain.

“It’s me, mate. I’m the one responsible for it,” said Postecoglou. “There is no point in the toughest moments palming off the responsibility to other people. I’m the person in charge. I’m the person that has set us off in this direction and I am the person who needs to fix it.”

On Tottenham’s decision to spend around £100 million on five teenagers during the summer, Postecoglou said: “It is still the right decision and I own them [transfers] because I believe they are the right decisions for this club. I have said numerous times, I make these decisions with the kind of background that I’m going to be here for a while to see this through.

“To be honest, if I was worried about my own existence, I would have fought tooth and nail to block Harry Kane from leaving but it wasn’t the right decision for the club because he was in the last year of his contract. That is not what drives me. The decisions we made around signing young players are the right decisions for this club for where we are at right now and they will bear fruit.

“We needed to do that because it was a team that was coming towards the end of its cycle and we were rebuilding not just the squad, but the playing style and you couldn’t replace experience with experience because that is not a rebuild. That is kind of topping up because you feel you are close to something and we weren’t close to anything.”

Postecoglou clearly does not agree with those who might fear he is yet another Tottenham manager coming to the end of his cycle. But Levy might have to hold his nerve a little longer than normal to avoid binning yet another plan.

Postecoglou: I’m fighting for my job and I’ll take on the fans again

Ange Postecoglou has vowed to keep fighting for his Tottenham Hotspur job and with any of the club’s fans who want to give him a piece of their minds. Postecoglou confronted a section of the Spurs travelling fans after the 1-0 defeat away at Bournemouth that prompted an angry reaction from the stands.

It was not the first time Tottenham’s head coach has exchanged words with fans who have given him a mouthful and Postecoglou insists he has no regrets over his reaction on Thursday night. Asked if he regretted reacting to some of the chants directed at him, Postecoglou said: “No. They felt like they needed to give me feedback, so I thought I’d get close enough for them to make sure they were heard.

“Hopefully, after 18 months, you’ve realised that I am who I am. I don’t really care. Whether people think I’m an easy target, soft target, I’m not going to shy away from it. I’ve fought my whole life and I’m not going to race down the tunnel because some people feel like they need to give me some direction. It doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t.

“From my perspective, what motivates me and what drives me on a daily basis is to continually stay true to my values and what I believe is the right thing to do in every situation.

“Maybe people thought it wasn’t the right thing to do. My wife certainly didn’t. So I got some feedback there as well. But that’s OK. I’m not going to change. It’s who I am, mate. I’ve been like that my whole career and I won’t change.”

In the run-up to Sunday’s game against London rivals Chelsea, Postecoglou appeared to acknowledge that doubts over the job he is doing at 10th-placed Spurs may not only be confined to some supporters. But he was insistent that he does not need any assurances from Daniel Levy, the Tottenham chairman, as he seeks to prove that his attack-minded approach can be successful.

“I’m here, I’m going to fight to make sure we bring success to this football club,” said Postecoglou. “Nothing really changes. Whether there’s doubt, whether that’s internally or externally, it just makes my resolve even stronger to get it right.

“I don’t need support. I don’t worry about contracts, I don’t worry about support. I just want to make sure that what I set out to do, I accomplish and that is to bring success to this football club. I will work my backside off to make sure that happens. I am not going to be deterred in my ambitions or endeavour to do that and that’s what I’ll keep doing.”

Tottenham have comfortably beaten Manchester City, United and Aston Villa this season, but have lost to Ipswich Town, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth.

Asked if he thought the majority of Spurs fans remain supportive of him, Postecoglou replied: “They’re not behind me, they’re behind the club. I’ve got no interest in who’s behind me. You’ve got to figure the ones who travel to Bournemouth are pretty hardcore supporters. They weren’t happy with what they saw, they felt like they needed to give me some feedback, I took the feedback on board and we move on.”

Postecoglou, though, did recognise that “ideally” the fans would back him and acknowledged that the atmosphere at Tottenham could turn toxic if more start to turn against him. “Very true, very true,” he said. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out that way, so I’ve got to find a way to make that happen.”

Tottenham have a number of injuries to key players, plus Rodrigo Bentancur’s suspension, and Postecoglou said that he did not know whether central defender Cristian Romero would return in time to face Chelsea.

“In the perfect world, we wouldn’t have got the injuries and suspensions and illnesses that we have, and the squad would look a lot healthier,” he said. “But where we are right now, we’re nowhere near the level we need to be.”