Ange Postecoglou will know that in many of the critical metrics caught by data analysis in the Premier League, his Tottenham Hotspur side are second only to Manchester City – although that may be little consolation ahead of Saturday’s big game.

The pressure is back on Spurs and their manager just over three weeks since they eliminated City from the League Cup. Pep Guardiola’s team might feel it, too, having lost four in a row, although none of those have been at the Etihad, where they remain undefeated in the league for more than two years. By contrast, Spurs went into the international break having lost at home to Ipswich Town, the first Premier League win for that club in more than 22 years.

Yet, if there is a team who could win at the Etihad, form suggests it might just be the volatile Spurs. It would be unusual for Guardiola’s team to lose to a side who play in such a similar fashion, with a high line and an intense determination to go forward, but it would also be in keeping with Spurs’ season. Managing that club is eternally precarious, as Postecoglou’s predecessors discovered, and this feels like another significant evening for the current incumbent.

Had they beaten Ipswich, Spurs would have been in third place – rather than 10th. That they lost says much about the extremes in form and outcome of a team who have outscored every other in the Premier League. They inflicted City’s first defeat of the season, demolished Aston Villa, and yet they also handed Crystal Palace and Ipswich their first league wins of 2024/25.

The data tells a story of a team built very much in the image of City. In many of the metrics that Guardiola would consider important, Spurs are second only to City. The issue for Postecoglou, 59, is that Spurs are already 12 points behind leaders Liverpool and extremely vulnerable to defeat when some of their key figures are off colour. The seven-game Football Association ban for Rodrigo Bentancur, appeal pending, is one more body blow.

Absolute commitment to attack

Spurs’ goal difference of +10 is second only to Liverpool. In terms of expected goals difference, excluding penalties, Spurs are on a balance of 0.7, second only to City. Unconvinced? The pattern repeats itself. Spurs are second only to City in terms of pure possession. The same is the case in possession progression-forward from the defensive third: Spurs 69.5 per cent plays City’s 75 per cent. More assist-zone entries for Spurs (12.8 per 90 minutes) than any team other than City (15.4).

Spurs have scored 23 goals, one more than the nearest contenders City and Brentford, for their relatively meagre return of 16 points. No team aside from City complete more passes in the opposition box or make more attacking passes than Spurs. Even City get passed through more often in their midfield than Spurs.

According to the model devised to measure such things, Spurs press more intensely than anyone, including Guardiola’s champions. They score more goals, and – City aside – they have as much of the ball in the most dangerous areas. They also seem to go to pieces more regularly as they have against Ipswich and Brighton, when they threw away a two-goal lead in the space of 18 minutes.

Those numbers tell one story about the kind of team Spurs are trying to be. Inside the club, Postecoglou is a different kind of manager. The coaching is done chiefly by Matt Wells, 36, the former academy coach who previously left to serve as an assistant to Scott Parker at three different clubs before returning to Spurs.

Postecoglou rates Wells highly and gives him some autonomy. Postecoglou leads meetings, makes the big decisions on game plans, and tells his coaches what he wants from sessions. Then he generally observes training, led by Wells.

A distant observer

The Australian’s own interventions are relatively rare, although the players might hear more from the manager as the final tactical preparations are made before match day. Postecoglou has a debrief post-session with his coaches. Many others have done the same: from Sir Alex Ferguson to Jurgen Klopp in his later years at Liverpool.

Postecoglou is unusual in the modern era in that he does not go in for a lot of the cosy personal conversations with players that some peers favour. He prefers to keep those interactions direct and brief when they do happen. It is certainly not the way of Mauricio Pochettino, for instance, but it has served Postecoglou well and he sees no reason to change.

Postecoglou arrived at Celtic in 2021 without a single fellow traveller on his staff, and the same was the case when he joined Spurs two years later – although that was more a consequence of Celtic’s refusal to release anyone else. At Spurs, Postecoglou’s coaching team includes Nick Montgomery, a Sheffield United stalwart who also played in Australia. Chris Davies was a key figure before he left in the summer to take over Birmingham City.

They have had their triumphs. Moving Dejan Kulusevski into a central position has been a step forward, and he is the best player this season. The change at half-time against West Ham on October 19, the introduction of Pape Sarr for James Maddison, gave Spurs the greater impact in midfield and they went on to win 4-1.

Maddison has started just one of the past four games, the defeat by Galatasaray, and Postecoglou and his coaches seem to be managing him into an understudy role – at least before Bentancur’s suspension was announced.

Postecoglou certainly has a sense of humour when it comes to his media obligations – one that only occasionally deserts him. His remarks after the defeat by Brighton, when he said that the performance was so poor his team did not deserve anything from the game, were telling for another reason. Can his sides fight to win games when they are not playing at their very best?

There are the more prosaic issues of managing Spurs. In the summer of last year they sold Harry Kane, their greatest player of the Premier League era, perhaps of all time, and have shown nothing like the ambition others might have done to replace him.

That was typical of a club run by chairman Daniel Levy, and the trust of the family of absentee former owner Joe Lewis, forced after his recent fraud case in the United States to divest himself of the direct control of the parent company, Enic. The same problems seem to repeat themselves.

The greatest burden of all is Spurs’ extraordinary habit of not winning trophies. Even Arsenal and Manchester United have managed to do so in seasons when they have been a long way from title challengers. Postecoglou certainly made himself a hostage to fortune when he said that he would deliver in his second season, and perhaps he felt it needed that kind of brinkmanship. The League Cup quarter-final against United next month is another great turning point.

Many others with bigger reputations have come away from Spurs cursing the place. While the careers of Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and, to a lesser extent, Pochettino, are often the most regularly cited in that respect, another name has crept on to the list. Three years ago, Nuno Espirito Santo was sacked after four months. It was near-fatal for his career. Yet look at him now. Fifth in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest. Was Nuno the problem? Or might it have been Spurs?

Postecoglou will be well aware of the scale of his task. Not many survive long at Spurs, and it could go either way on Saturday. The numbers say that this rather retiring man, with an absolutism about his style and a tendency to keep his distance from his players, could well be on the right track. But coaxing any modicum of trophy success from Spurs requires rather more than that. So far it has proved elusive in this century to all but one who has tried.