Micky van de Ven accused of throwing Ange Postecoglou under the bus after Tottenham sack
Simon Jordan has accused Micky van de Ven of trying to excuse himself and other Tottenham players of responsibility for their failings last season.
Tottenham famously lifted the Europa League trophy by beating Man United but finished a dreadful 17th in the Premier League last term.
Ange Postecoglou was sacked as a result and replaced by Thomas Frank, who himself is now struggling for form as Tottenham boss.
Star centre-back Van de Ven appeared in an episode of The Overlap from Sky Sports this week and discussed the differing tactics between the two managers, revealing that he and captain Cristian Romero had approached Postecoglou last season and said they needed to temper the Australian’s notoriously cavalier Tottenham set up.
Van de Ven shares behind-the-scenes Postecoglou talks
Reacting to the comments live on talkSPORT former Crystal Palace chairman Jordan indicated that he had no issue with senior players contributing to a manager’s decision-making process but questioned what the Dutch defender’s agenda was in making the discussions public.
Jordan said: “I’m not entirely sure why Van de Ven needs to disclose the content of conversations with the manager. Perhaps to excuse their performances last year.
“It’s interesting that he talks about the fact that the only time they were playing was in the Europa League games… it’s an interesting set of observations.
“In isolation they look very condemnatory of the manager and look like the players are coming out of it without any responsibility for their individual performances on the field.”
Tottenham players need to approach Thomas Frank as well
Given Postecoglou’s reaction to any scent of criticism during his time at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium he probably would take umbrage with the idea that his players had to tell him how to set up the team.
But since he seemed incapable of dumbing down the gung-ho approach, ironically outside of some key games on the way to winning the Europa League, there probably is also truth to what Van de Ven has said even if the centre-back obviously wouldn’t have let it out if the manager hadn’t changed.
It is true that Frank has tightened things up at the back this term, although Guglielmo Vicario keeps doing his best to make that irrelevant in the Tottenham goal, but it has gone from one extreme to the other with the attack looking extremely weak too often instead.
In light of Van de Ven scoring a goal-of-the-season contender against Copenhagen last month, and Romero netting twice in the recent draw at Newcastle, the two defenders might be the ones best placed to again go to their manager and this time tell him how to fix things going forward.
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