Those who have worked with or for Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy all agree on one thing. In previous years, a head coach with the record of Ange Postecoglou would have been sacked long ago.

Tottenham are 14th in the Premier League table, behind London rivals West Ham United who sacked Julen Lopetegui this month, and have lost the same number of games as third-from-bottom Ipswich Town.

Postecoglou has been in charge for 19 months, which is around four months short of the average tenure of a full-time Tottenham manager under Levy, although take out Mauricio Pochettino’s five-plus years and the Australian is already past his Spurs sell-by date.

The message after the north London derby defeat by Arsenal was that Postecoglou retains the support of the Tottenham board. There has been no suggestion that the Everton game has become a do-or-die scenario for the 59-year-old, even though outsiders are convinced he must be approaching the end game.

So how has Postecoglou survived so long and why has Levy been so reluctant to make a change, having rarely hung around in the past? Tottenham’s crippling injury list has no doubt played a big part, but the real reason may lie a little deeper.

Following three managerial appointments that blew up in his face in Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espírito Santo and Antonio Conte, Levy decided it was time to do things differently. In came chief football officer Scott Munn and technical director Johan Lange, and out went a number of behind-the-scenes staff.

The cull, over the course of almost two years, has been brutal at times and not universally popular, but it has been made in an effort to change the culture at Tottenham and align departments.

There is still work to be done and some who prefer to deflect blame remain close to Levy. But there is now high-level recognition that a club that has not won a trophy since 2008 cannot keep doing the same things and that changing manager every 18 months or so will only keep the vicious circle turning.

‘There’s no miracle cure’

That is not to say that Spurs will not be forced to replace Postecoglou at any stage, but his survival so far is very much part of an effort to commit to something and try to find something lasting. What better way to prove that the culture has really changed than for Levy to stand by his man?

Postecoglou is not the type of character to lose sleep over his own position, but admits he is working late into the night looking for solutions to Tottenham’s poor league form.

“You’ll find most people in these positions are always trying to find a way to change the course of events and we’re all probably staying up late at night trying to figure out if there is something I can do,” said Postecoglou. “But the one thing I do know is that there’s no miracle cure. Part of it is just turning up and fighting for what you believe in.”

If Tottenham can come through this spell, with Postecoglou still in place – and that is a big if at the moment – then there is an insistence that the club, the staff and the players will be much stronger for it. There would also be a loud message sent to the squad that the head coach is no longer the first man to get the blame.

Sunday’s opponents Everton have recently changed their manager and are deep in relegation trouble, and yet victory over Tottenham at Goodison Park would put them only four points behind Postecoglou’s team.

Asked if his team should be worried about the possibility of being dragged into a relegation battle, Postecoglou said: “That’s like me thinking about qualifying for Europe – it’s irrelevant. Nothing is more important than us playing well and getting a result at Everton. That’s all you can focus on.”

Former Spurs managers have spoken publicly and privately about the power players have previously held at the club. Levy backed the squad over Pochettino when things started to go wrong and cultivated a culture in which Danny Rose warned Mourinho that he would go to see the chairman when he did not get his own way in a discussion that was captured by the Amazon cameras.

Conte called out Tottenham’s players publicly in what proved to be his exit speech, but Spurs are now trying to prove that Postecoglou will not be undermined and that the squad can no longer sit around and wait for the manager to be sacked when they fail to perform or step out of line.

There is recognition internally that some of his more experienced players have let Postecoglou down so far this season. While youngsters such as Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall have impressed, captain Son Heung-min, James Maddison, Yves Bissouma, Pedro Porro and Timo Werner have been some way from their best, while Rodrigo Bentancur served a seven-match ban over a racial slur and then immediately earned a yellow card that led to a further suspension.

High time players stepped up

Bentancur’s recent absence through concussion was no fault of his own, but the Uruguayan, like others at Spurs this season, had not helped himself or Postecoglou before that.

Postecoglou laid into some of his senior stars after the Europa League draw with Rangers and publicly branded Werner’s performance “unacceptable.” But there has been no sense that he has lost their faith – certainly not the majority – and it is high time a few stepped up for him.

“I think whenever you’re in a situation like ours, my experience tells me you do need the ones who’ve maybe been through the tougher times to lead you through it,” said Postecoglou. “There’s no doubt about it.

“We don’t have a great deal of experience to lean on, but, certainly, for us to get through it, it’s going to need some leadership. Now, leadership can come in all forms and maybe it will be the young ones that do get us through, there’s no reason why they can’t. That’s the message I’ve been giving back to them – whatever it takes and whoever stands up in these moments, don’t wait for somebody else. If you feel like it’s going to be you, then you take that moment.”

Players are gradually starting to return from injury, which will undoubtedly increase the pressure on Postecoglou to turn around results – particularly when Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero are back.

The unanswerable question is how long has Postecoglou got? The second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final tie against Liverpool, which Spurs lead in, has been portrayed by some outside the club as being crucial for the former Celtic manager who boasted that he always wins a trophy in his second season.

But, in reality, the Europa League games against Hoffenheim and Elfsborg could be even more important with the competition offering a route through the back door into next season’s Champions League.

Two wins in their remaining league-phase games of the Europa League would almost certainly secure a top-eight finish and a path straight into the last 16, also affording Spurs a European break while others are forced to play a two-legged play-off round.

With Champions League qualification through the Premier League already looking almost impossible, retaining a realistic chance of winning the Europa League would undoubtedly be helpful to Postecoglou’s prospects of keeping his job.

But at some point his team will have to start climbing the domestic table and the next two games against Everton and Leicester City give them a chance to do that. Failure to win both will only convince Levy’s old employees and allies that he will revert to type – regardless of the Tottenham culture shift.