Postecoglou says Spurs ‘are not a big club’ and reveals four players he tried to sign

Ange Postecoglou says Spurs “are not a big club” and revealed that he tried to sign Marc Guehi, Antoine Semenyo, Pedro Neto and Bryan Mbeumo when he was manager at the club.

The Australian was sacked by Tottenham after breaking the club’s 17 year trophy drought by beating Manchester United in the Europa League final in Bilbao, but also finishing 17th in the Premier League at the same time.

Speaking on the Overlap podcast on Thursday after Spurs sacked his successor, Thomas Frank, Postecoglou explained the issues at the club.

“Obviously, they’ve [Spurs] built an unbelievable stadium, unbelievable training facilities,” Postecoglou explained.

“But when you look at the expenditure, particularly in the wage structure, they’re not a big club. I saw that, because when we were trying to sign players, we weren’t in the market for those players.

Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher spoke about a lack of belief at Spurs, and Postecoglou said that the mentality at the club was what he was trying to change.

“That was the thing I was trying to break,” he added. “My whole thing about winning something in my second year, I was doing that for the club.

“Nobody internally would dare say that because they were too scared, they’d been close a few times.

“Then you break that by winning something and what do you do? You tear it all up and you start again. That’s the curiosity, what are you trying to achieve?”

Postecolgou also criticised the club’s wage structure and their ability to sign top quality players.

“At the end of my first year, when we finished fifth, for me, OK, how do you go from fifth to really challenging? Well, we had to sign Premier League-leading players,” he added.

“But finishing fifth that year didn’t get us Champions League, we didn’t have the money. So we ended up signing Dom Solanke, I was really keen on him, I really liked him. Then three teenagers.

“I was looking at Pedro Neto, Bryan Mbeumo and Antoine Semenyo at the time, Marc Guéhi, because I said we need … If we’re going to go from fifth to there, that’s what the other big clubs would do in that moment.

“And those three teenagers are outstanding young players. Brilliant young players. I think they’ll be great players for Tottenham, but they’re not going to get you from fifth to fourth.”