Tottenham fans put heat on Daniel Levy but Ange Postecoglou not yet out of firing line

Southampton fans’ ugly mutiny against Russell Martin during Sunday's 5-0 defeat to Tottenham produced immediate results, with the head coach unceremoniously sacked two hours after full-time.

The frustration of Spurs’ travelling supporters, who vented at the club’s chairman Daniel Levy throughout their biggest win of the season, are likely to simmer for much longer, however.

From the first whistle, even before James Maddison gave Ange Postecoglou’s side a 36-second lead at St. Mary's, there was a volley of “We want Levy out” from the visiting fans, while a new chant – “I don’t care about Levy, he don’t care about me” – was premiered on the south coast.

It was striking that the chants continued as Spurs racked up the goals – scoring five times in the first half for the first time in the Premier League – suggesting this was not a protest fuelled by short-term unrest at results but rather a more ingrained anger at Levy’s running of the club.

By contrast, the away end showed their support for Postecoglou, chanting their head coach’s name to make it plain where many supporters feel the blame for Spurs’ underwhelming start to the season lies.

Since Postecoglou joined the club two summers ago, the disillusionment at Levy which was such a feature of the 2022/23 campaign (when Antonio Conte, Cristian Stellini and Ryan Mason all had stints managing the team) has largely died down, as fans responded to the appointment of a manager more in keeping with the club’s ethos and a handful of encouraging signings in summer 2023.

Now, the frustration at the chairman is back, largely a consequence of Spurs’ underwhelming start to Postecoglou’s second season in charge.

Back in April, the Australian said he expected the club to be challenging for the title this term but after 16 League games, they are 10th – 13 points shy of league leaders Liverpool, who have a game in hand and visit north London on Sunday.

Rather than Spurs, it has been Arne Slot’s Reds and, unexpectedly, Chelsea who appear best-placed to capitalise on Manchester City’s fallow year, with the Blues’ lavish transfer spending and the canny appointment of head coach Enzo Maresca starting to pay off.

While Chelsea were among the clubs to improve their squad in the summer – with Tosin Adarabioyo and Pedro Neto, who were both admired by Spurs, among their signings – Spurs’ business has appeared increasingly underwhelming as their stop-start season has progressed.

Dominic Solanke has improved Postecoglou’s best XI but of their three teenage additions, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall have understandably needed time to acclimatise, while Wilson Odobert has spent the majority of the season sidelined through injury.

The narrative in September was that Spurs' squad was deeper and more suited to Postecoglou's football than last term, even if their best XI was similar, but even that premise is no longer certain; there is a case that they have taken a step backward in terms of depth in the hope of taking two forward at some point down the line.

Many supporters now sense that another opportunity for Spurs to kick on and make a statement was squandered over the summer, contributing to the well-worn feeling that Levy will always be reluctant to do what it takes to really compete – at least on the playing squad.

The chairman is not likely to radically change the club’s transfer policy based on pressure from the terraces but the threat of missing out on European football next season may be a powerful motivator to act next month.

If the club is committed to backing Postecoglou, they need to spend in January after the squad was stretched to the limit by what the head coach has described as the worst injury crisis of his coaching career.

Ironically, however, in turning on Levy and publicly backing Postecoglou on the south coast, supporters may have made the head coach’s position more precarious.

Levy dislikes the spotlight – and, sure enough, the TV cameras repeatedly picked him during the chants at St. Mary’s, hoping to catch a flicker of emotion – and he is more likely to make a change in the dugout if the pressure on him continues to intensify.

The mood, which was lifted by the first-half blitz against sorry Saints, will quickly sour if Spurs lose Thursday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final at home to Manchester United, which many fans regard as the biggest game of their season so far.

Encouraging performances from Djed Spence and Bergvall on the first starts in the Premier League, as well as another composed outing by Gray at centre-back, suggest Postecoglou’s squad could be more robust in the second half of the campaign, although it was hard to read too much into a strange game, such were the depths plumbed by Saints.

Spurs strolled through the second half after Maddison’s double and further goals from Heung-min Son, Dejan Kulusevski and Pape Matar Sarr put them out of sight by the interval.

A half-paced second half could represent an important circuit-breaker for Postecoglou’s fatigued and depleted squad, freshening them up for the midweek visit of United.

It remains to be seen if the home supporters will be prepared to vent at Levy in the same way on Thursday but the heat on both the chairman and Postecoglou will intensify if Spurs do not follow up the thrashing of Saints with another win.