Micah Richards has questioned whether there is a deeper problem than successive managers at Tottenham as current boss Ange Postecoglou comes under increasing pressure.

Spurs find themselves languishing in 15th place in the Premier League table after Sunday’s 2-1 home defeat by struggling Leicester, their fourth loss in succession and sixth in seven league games.

Sections of the crowd made their feelings abundantly clear to chairman Daniel Levy during yet another difficult afternoon for Australian Postecoglou, who is approaching 20 months in a job which most recent predecessors Antonio Conte, Nuno Espirito Santo and Jose Mourinho all found difficult.

Speaking on The Rest is Football podcast, former Manchester City defender Richards said: “There must be something wrong, because if you look at Nuno Espirito Santo who was at Tottenham, now at Forest, of course, what [Antonio] Conte is doing at Napoli… Okay, Mourinho, yes, you expect him to do that. He’s second for Fenerbahce in the Turkish League.

“But they’ve all been at Spurs and maybe had more time, but they couldn’t get it right, is the opinion of the time, so when you’re talking about Spurs and the managers, it’s very difficult to know what’s going on behind the scenes because people go from there and end up doing well.

“Is that what the Spurs fans are alluding to with Levy? It must be something deep-rooted in what they’re trying to do?”

Conte’s Napoli are currently three points clear of Inter Milan at the top of Serie A having played a game more, while Espirito Santo is presiding over a remarkable campaign with Nottingham Forest, who remain third in the Premier League, and Fenerbahce sit second in the Turkish Super Lig under Mourinho.

No manager has got Spurs closer to where they want to be in recent years than Argentinian Mauricio Pochettino, who guided them to a second-place finish in 2016-17 and the Champions League final two seasons later.

Alan Shearer said: “When you look at Pochettino as well, he needed to be backed at that particular time when he could have taken them to the next level, I think, and they didn’t.

“When you look at the managers that have been in the club, it has to be a bigger problem than the managers.”

Postecoglou has had to deal with a lengthy injury list in recent weeks, but has seen his understudies struggle in a run which has seen Spurs collect just one of the last 21 points they have contested.

However, they remain on course for a place in the last 16 in the Europa League and will take a 1-0 lead into their Carabao Cup semi-final, second leg clash with Liverpool on February 6, a factor which Shearer believes may have spared him until this point.

The former England captain said: “You look at that game and you think if they perhaps weren’t in that position, then maybe the worst would have already happened.

“But when you look to that game, that is a huge game for them.”