Spurs chiefs wonder should they stick or twist

Last week's Europa League final brought together two clubs with a lot of similarities. Mired in the bottom half of the Premier League after a wretched season, Manchester United and Tottenham have become shadows of their former selves as they stumbled and stuttered to defeat after defeat. Tottenham lost a staggering 22 of their 38 league matches; United lost 18.

Similarities, too, can be drawn with the managerial situations they find themselves in now, with big decisions to be made over the next couple of weeks.

Ruben Amorim is safe in his position at Old Trafford. To be fair to the Portuguese, he didn't actually want to take the job until this summer. Yet, when his hand was forced to move from Sporting last November, few would have expected things to have gone quite as badly as they have. Hoping to bring a level of consistency, the only thing Amorim has helped United achieve is a level of consistent mediocrity.

Their final points tally of 42 is quite a distance from their previous worst performance in a Premier League season, that being 58 in 2021/22. Jim Ratcliffe has come in to get involved on the ownership front, yet there are so many problems with United right now, it's hard to know where to start.

Ripping apart the current playing squad, which is bloated in the extreme with players on huge contracts without justifying anything close to the wages they are on, has to be top of the list. With a hole in the finances now though with the absence of European football next season, Amorim's unlikely to have too much cash to play with in the summer transfer window.

Ordinarily, finishing in 15th place for a club of United's stature – their lowest finish since the mid-1970s – would lead to immediate dismissal from the managerial role. It's unacceptable. But United have nowhere to turn, so Amorim, by default, is safe for now.

The Spurs conundrum is similar to one that United have had to contend with on a couple of occasions over the past decade or so. In 2016, three years after the departure of Alex Ferguson, Manchester United landed the FA Cup after a 2-1 win after extra-time. Two days later, Louis van Gaal was sacked as manager. An identical situation appeared to be in the offing for van Gaal's compatriot Erik ten Hag last season when his team captured the famous trophy, but he received a stay of execution. This proved to be the wrong decision; ten Hag was out of a job by the October.

Tottenham face an identical puzzle now; do they stick with Ange Postecoglou, or do they part company and start afresh with someone new?

Thing is, while the situations are similar on the face of it, the backgrounds are totally different. United is a far more successful club to Spurs, therefore the demands and expectations of the manager differ widely. Last Wednesday's success in Bilbao delivered Tottenham a first trophy in 17 years. The club has just two top-tier league titles (the last in 1961) and its last triumph in the FA Cup was in 1991. So, the North Londoners aren't accustomed to winning things – so why should they now dispense with the man that has guided them to some all-too-rare silverware?

Memories, too, are clouded with a recency bias. Cast your mind back to the early part of the 2023-24 season. Fresh in the door from Celtic, Postecoglou won Manager of the Month in August, September and October. Spurs were the early pacesetters and, not only that, they were playing football that bordered on the irresistible. It was a tad gung-ho – and still is – but there was something admirable, if chaotic, about it all. A fifth placed finish when the final tallies came in was a respectable return for the Australian in his first season in charge.

This season has been dismal by comparison. Their much talked about injury crisis was often referenced as the sole cause of their horrendous form, but other clubs have struggled on that front too. Kieran McKenna's Ipswich Town, for example, have an injury list as long as your arm but the Fermanagh native hasn't been keen to stress that in his utterances in the media.

Tottenham have been awful at times, and the general mood around the whole situation has been toxic at times too. Postecoglou has been guilty of taking those frustrations out in confrontations with some of the fans, which also added to the general feeling of malaise around North London.

And yet. And yet.

Spurs now have Champions League football to look forward to next season – which is as big a fillip as you can have when preparing for the new campaign. Fans will reflect on the season just gone with a great degree of pride in having claimed a European trophy in the midst of such a challenging campaign domestically. That's how big an impact a trophy can have.

If reports are to be believed, Spurs have already undertaken quite a bit of work in researching potential replacements for their manager. Thomas Frank, Andoni Iraola and others are names being mentioned in the general conversation. Oliver Glasner, who recently guided Crystal Palace to FA Cup glory, also has his admirers. Those plans should be shelved in light of their triumph in Bilbao.

Postecoglou is not an unknown entity – he has already proven himself to be a manager capable of succeeding in the Premier League. More to the point, he has displayed a pragmatism and willingness to compromise in relation to his approach during the course of the Europa League campaign, cutting his cloth to what was required.

Instead of the naive, all-out attack approach we have seen at times, Spurs were tight, solid and compact in many of their European fixtures. The final was as good an illustration of that as any; it was real backs to the wall stuff. And it worked.

Spurs have been so short of silverware over the years. Why would you look to get rid of the man that helped change that? That would be the most Spursy thing of all.