Top managers need to be flexible – no wonder Ange Postecoglou and Russell Martin are struggling

Fans of Tottenham and Southampton lamenting the inflexibility of their managers as they exercise the right to keep losing in exactly the same way ought to dispatch a strongly worded email to Bayern Munich president Herbert Hainer.

Last summer, Hainer and his fellow executives at the Allianz Arena strengthened the cause of ideological coaches by appointing Vincent Kompany, gambling on a football purist who lost 24 of his 38 Premier League games.

Kompany’s press conferences as Burnley meekly headed back to the Championship were similar and as divisive to those of Southampton’s Russell Martin and, albeit higher up the Premier League, Spurs’ Ange Postecoglou.

The Pep Guardiola-infused approach of the ex-Manchester City captain was well-advertised long before it was overpowered by Burnley’s more experienced, physically adept and tactically fluid Premier League opponents.

“I got told, especially going into the Championship, that you couldn’t do it the way we did it. Now I’m getting told the same,” Kompany said prior to Burnley’s opening game hammering by his former club.

“We have to do what we believe in and this will be us. It’s not even about proving people wrong, it’s about believing this is the way we’re going to be successful.”

Burnley supporters quickly saw that what worked at the lower level meant certain doom in the Premier League.

Selfishness in Kompany’s approach at Burnley

The “bigger picture” Kompany kept referencing ensured he was branded as a coach of a certain footballing style, thus making him attractive to a club of Bayern’s stature. In retrospect there was an inherent selfishness to it; Burnley a means to an end for a young coach showcasing his principles in the knowledge sporting directors would notice, regardless of the outcome for the club.

At the elite level, working your way through every formation in the Uefa coaching manual is considered a weakness, “identity” being the buzzword. A certainty of purpose is demanded from those aspiring to win domestic titles and the Champions League – witness the enthusiasm for Ruben Amorim and his three centre-backs. Below that, it is regarded as intransigence, coaches failing to adapt to a different reality by asking defenders and goalkeepers of limited technical ability to behave like playmakers.

Top European clubs are number crunching in the hunt for those managers who fit their profile as a cross between Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp – passing teams who are always on the front foot. They calculate that with better players and resources, a skill set is transferable.

With Bayern currently six points ahead at the top of the Bundesliga table, who can argue they and Kompany got it wrong?

There is some irony that had Kompany kept Burnley in the Premier League and established them there by following the tactical blueprint of, say, Brentford’s Thomas Frank, he would still be at Turf Moor, receiving plaudits for an extraordinary job but with little chance of making the long-list when a vacancy arose at Bayern.

Frank is probably the most underrated manager working in English football because when compared to contemporaries working at clubs with similar resources, he is putting his club first and how he is perceived second.

For Frank, being multi-dimensional is perfect for Brentford, but not so useful to him when Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester United and Bayern Munich engaged in their most recent recruitment process. He is not easily pigeon-holed as a descendant of Johan Cruyff’s “total football” or Arrigo Sacchi’s “high press” and probably regarded a bit “too direct” for sophisticated tastes.

Whenever Postecoglou and Martin move on from their current jobs, they will not wait long for an offer. There will be fans more downtrodden than Southampton’s and Spurs’ who are seduced by a coach vowing to impose a technical, attacking, passing brand of football.

Postecoglou and Martin are sure what they are doing is for the greater good of Spurs and Southampton, not just their reputation and careers. Their boards knew what they were getting when they appointed them.

But tactical evolution ought to be part of the conditions of such a prestigious job. No one at Spurs should be asking ‘Big Ange’ to rip up the tactical master plan which recently dismantled Manchester City – just to be open to the occasional slight redesign.