‘What was I thinking?’ – Postecoglou admits his biggest mistake and responds to Van de Ven claim

“In the Europa, it’s not that much, because the teams from the Premier League compared to the teams that finish fourth or fifth in Germany or Spain, it’s quite competitive. What I saw what they were doing, well, they were playing pretty risk-free, very, you know, strong defensive organisation, and if we could somehow create that model for the Europa League with the players I had.

“Key to that was Van de Ven and Romero, and I did have discussions with the players. I mean, I was being a bit facetious about it, but I wanted them to buy into it, because it was a little bit of a departure, but they were all in for it.”

He added: “I said, look, this is the kind of football that will get us through, because I know cup football anyway is different from your league football. So, we trained differently, we were prepared differently. People will say ‘well, why don’t you do that in the league?’ Well, they were doing that in the league with Antonio [Conte] for two years, and they didn’t like it.

“So, that’s not what the club wanted, but this was about the process of getting to winning a competition that had a clear strategy, you could do it. So, we did. And if you look at the final. By the end of it, I put on Kevin Danso to turn the back four into a back five, then I put on Djed Spence, I think I had about seven defenders on there, and I was looking at the bench to see if there was any other defenders!

“I could hear my dad going ‘what are you doing?’ And, you know, we’ve got a line of about seven players on the edge of our box at one stage. But at the same time, I knew if we shut down Bruno [Fernandes], they weren’t going to score. I just felt with United, the way they set up with Ruben [Amorim] and the kind of ways they would try to break us down if we were really solid defensively, as long as we scored, we had to get a goal. We were still aggressive with our press, that didn’t change.

“But in terms of being a little bit more direct, yeah, for sure, and a lot more sort of defensively rigid, that definitely happened. But that was because I, in my mind, thought, well, what a unique opportunity.”

After he was sacked by Tottenham, Postecoglou did not spend long out of the game before accepting the job at Nottingham Forest to replace Nuno Espirito Santo. He would last only eight matches under volatile owner Evangelos Marinakis without Forest managing to record a win as he attempted to rapidly shift the style of football from his predecessor’s very different outlook.

“Look, I mean, there’s not much to talk about the Forest thing because this programme will last longer than my tenure!” joked the former Celtic boss.

When asked whether he had had discussions with Marinakis about the change in style of football and all that involved, he shook his head.

“I look back on it and I go ‘what was I thinking?’, I didn’t have extensive discussions with him about it and I should have,” said Postecoglou. “That’s what I should have done. But I’ve always been, you know what, get me in there and I’ll show you. You’ll see it. From the first day, you will see it. The players will see it. The staff will see it. You’ll feel it around the place.

“They were the discussions I should have had. And it’s too easy for me to say ‘well, I should have more time’. It’s on me. I made that decision. Full disclosure, exactly where I’m walking into, in the end, obviously I was optimistic about what I could do, but it was the worst case scenario sort of.”

He added: “The whole Forest thing, that was on me. That was a bad decision by me to go in there and I’ve got to take ownership. There’s no point in me blaming that I didn’t get time or anything. I should never have gone in there. It was too soon after Tottenham. I was taking over at a time when obviously I’m going to do things differently. They were used to doing things a certain way. And I’ve got to cop that. That was my mistake. It’s no one else’s fault.”

The Greek-born Australian was asked if anyone around him among his friends was warning him against taking the job.

“Yeah, everyone around me, but it was the first time I wasn’t working in 20 odd years. I was lost,” he said. “In the off-season, I was lost. Usually in the off-season, you go away with your family but there’s transfers, there’s pre-season. And I was lost.

“It was a good group of players. That’s what I thought. I stripped everything back, because really, when you go into a club, most of the time that club wants change. The reality of it is I think they were reluctant to get rid of Nuno. It was only because of, I don’t know what happened behind the scenes, but there was no way they would have sacked Nuno after last year. So you’re not walking into an environment, a playing group where they’re really looking for change.

“So from that point of view, I was thinking to myself but with that group of players, I reckon I can turn them around pretty quickly. And we had a couple of games that could have gone our way. But, strategically, I’m the worst decision maker sort of in terms of that time around for my career.

“We had four away games, my first four were away. By the time we really had our games, I think I had three at home. We just never got any traction and it’s no wonder the supporters never took to me. Even the players were kind of…”

He added: “My wife’s theory is that I was still too close to Tottenham. They were still seeing me as the Tottenham manager. And I think there’s some merit in that. You need to leave some space for people just to process everything. But I just wanted to work, mate. Like I said, I saw a group of players and thought, you know what? They’re in Europe, Europa League, we might have another crack at it.

“Yeah, that [initial momentum] is what happened at Tottenham. I mean, the first 10 games, I needed those. If I had started my season like I did the second year or like Thomas [Frank] started this year, I would have been gone. There’s no way I would have survived at Tottenham. But we got off to a flyer the first 10 games and you need to, especially, like I said, when I didn’t have a lot of skin in the game in terms of people saying, well, he’s got a body of work that we already know. I had to prove myself.”

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