Tottenham can challenge for the Premier League title and have the best communicator in football as their manager, according to Ange Postecoglou’s former player Jackson Irvine.
Spurs are sitting pretty at the top of the table as they gear up for Monday’s London derby at home to Fulham, following an unbeaten start to the Premier League season.
Postecoglou was Australia manager between 2013 and 2017, the first four years of Irvine’s international career.
Irvine, who spent three years at Celtic before Postecoglou was manager and also turned out for the likes of Hull City and Burton Albion, was always impressed by Postecoglou’s ability to communicate with players during his time as the Socceroos’ head coach.
“He’s a defining character in the history of the sport in our country," Irvine told Standard Sport.
“He speaks as well as anyone in the game. One of his greatest qualities as a manager is that ability to really make you believe not just in a footballing philosophy but in yourself and in the team and the culture that he creates. He’s a special coach.”
Asked whether Postecoglou’s impressive start as manager of Spurs, who sit top of the league, had surprised him, Irvine replied: “Never. I don’t think anyone who has worked with him could be surprised about anything he’s done in the game.
He's a defining character in the history of the sport in our country
“I said it before he went to Celtic and I’ll say it again with him coming here [to Spurs]: the way he’s galvanised a club after a period of such negativity and losing its greatest-ever player, it’s a great achievement. It was an extra challenge.
“He’s doing what we all believe he could do. It’s a long season, but with the quality they have and the way he’s got players who he probably didn’t feel were capable of performing at that level performing the way they are in such a short space of time, you never know what’s possible in the months to come.”
