Postecoglou has suffered painful bites but deserves praise for still showing his teeth

IF you’ll indulge a short trip down a sideroad, I did some reading before Tottenham’s defeat at Chelsea about men of faith whose beliefs align with an appetite for risk. Eventually, that journey slithered its way to an American preacher named Jamie Coots.

Snakes were his thing. Yes, he was one of those guys. He’d stand at the front of his church in Kentucky and no matter how often the rattlers got him, he kept making it back to the stage to deliver his message, ever more convinced he had it right.

Which was all well and good until the ninth time he was bitten — he’s been gone 10 years now. If there’s a point here, it might be the value of balancing devotion with self-preservation. Of knowing the correct moment to tweak your approach in service to an ideology.

So what do we make of Ange Postecoglou in the dafter business of football?

Since he came into our orbit, he’s been the preacher standing over the Premier League’s vivarium — you can’t spell evangelical without Ange. He has his guiding principles on how the game should be played, his ‘religion’ as he puts it, and he’s not for turning.

He stuck to it when Tottenham were flying, he stuck to it when they had nine men against Chelsea in November, and he stuck to it when it all went wrong against the same team on Thursday. He will stick with it at Liverpool today, even if it means a fourth loss in a row. And he will stick with it if what was once top spot after 11 games withers to sixth after 38.

He will keep to his theory that everything is of lesser importance, of lower priority, than getting his players to buy into his vision of attacking football. Pass backwards? Ask Cristian Romero and Pape Sarr what their manager thinks about that. Ask him about free-kicks again and he might pass you the rattlesnake.

And isn’t that a bit weird and wonderful? Such a lack of flexibility can be flawed and self-defeating in football, and usually is, but it is fabulous in less conventional ways.

I loved an interview he gave to Mail Sport on this subject back in November. That was when Spurs’ opening run of eight wins and two draws ended with a cavalier defeat against Chelsea and a limper one at Wolves. Folk had just started to query, rather sensibly, if there was something to be said for holding back a little more, but he wasn’t having it.

‘I don’t know any other way,’ he told Ian Ladyman and Chris Sutton. ‘In the broad church of football philosophies, I have stayed really strict to one religion. I went into a library of football books and got stuck on one section that was about attacking football. It’s the only space I feel comfortable in.’

He’s had that vibe since he got here and it might even be the most consistent aspect about Tottenham’s season. By last Wednesday — a day before the worst half of their campaign against Chelsea — Postecoglou had built on his theme, first when he spoke of the need within his squad for ‘true believers’, and then in the context of their woeful set-piece record.

The latter was taking on urgency because Spurs had conceded 14 through such means and he was asked if it was a concern. ‘Not in the least,’ he said, before reaching once more into the box of snakes. ‘To quote Billy Joel, “You may be right, I may be crazy, but it’s maybe a lunatic you’re looking for”.

‘There is an underlying reason for that. Eventually I will create a team that have success and it won’t be because of working on set-pieces.’

Plainly the sentiment around setpieces feels a touch senseless, if he was to be taken at face value, because Tottenham were bitten twice by free-kicks against Chelsea. Only three other sides have let in more and they are all in the bottom four of the division. Manchester City and Arsenal are not in the top two solely because of their set-pieces, but it’s hardly irrelevant that they also have the two best records defending dead balls. Just as they are both in the top three for scoring from them and Spurs are joint 10th.

Short of Postecoglou being traumatised by an errant free-kick as a child, it is hard to understand any ‘underlying reason’ for why he seems so resistant to enhancing this aspect of his coaching. It is a sporting madness to leave the stone unturned when so many rivals are giving it fanatical importance.

BUT Postecoglou is also right about something — he is the lunatic we have been looking for. He is the 58-year-old man who, having taken such a long road to the Premier League, is determined to do it his way. A friend of football’s most exciting form and a manager who turned mate into a slightly dirty word. He is the edgy old romantic unwilling to sell himself out at a point when English football has flogged FA Cup replays and might soon send a few games over to the US.

On a less ethereal level, he is the coach who arrived at Tottenham and almost immediately lost Harry Kane. That was the same as moving into a palace and finding a cobra in your bed — he simply picked it up and started preaching his way to the top.

Currently, he looks and sounds like a manager on the wrong end of a painful biting. We must balance that against a record that shows Postecoglou has amassed 60 points in 34 games — three more than Mikel Arteta managed in his first 38 at Arsenal and he’s tracking to exceed Jurgen Klopp for the same span.

The question is how he adjusts amid the subtly shifting mood towards his work.

If we are to recall the brilliant interview he did in these pages last year, you will find a few clues, remembering that it came on the back of two defeats.

‘Perversely this is the bit I love,’ he said. ‘It tests me as a person. It tests my belief.’

The fresh fang marks in his hands would suggest he is still keeping the faith, from the good bits to the bad to the senseless. Buried beneath the lunacy of it all, there’s a real beauty in that.