Ange Postecoglou has admitted he 'underestimated the challenges of Europe'. The 59-year-old currently faces an uncertain future at Tottenham Hotspur despite leading the club to the UEFA Europa League quarterfinals.
While the Lilywhites have managed to reach the latter stages of the competition, they've struggled to climb out of the bottom half of the Premier League table. With nine games to go, Spurs are 14th in the English top flight – and they're nearly as many points from the relegation zone (17) as they are from Chelsea (15) in fourth.
Unless Tottenham win the Europa League, they'll be without European football next season. In an interview with Optus Sport, Postecoglou was quizzed on the North Londoners' campaign.
The Spurs boss said: "It's been a tough season. There's no hiding from it. It hasn't gone anywhere near the levels we wanted. We started off with goals and ambitions around what we wanted to achieve.
"There's frustration that we've seen glimpses of what we want, but then enormous setbacks and our inconsistency – particularly in the league - we've performed well in the cups, better than last year.
"But in the league, we've been nowhere near it. There's obvious reasons for that, but even within that context, it's just a really disappointing season."
Then, Postecoglou reasoned why Tottenham have disappointed this season, noting the no traditional break, the challenges of Europe and injuries to key players. He said: "The domino effect of certain things happening.
"Again, you try and assess things as you go along but I think we got the start of the year wrong… it's becoming increasingly challenging for footballers, they don't get the traditional break.
"I think we went into the season really hard and underestimated the challenges of Europe with the two extra games, having a cup run...all those things. You add to the mix losing key players early on.
"It feels like we've been chasing our tail since then and we haven't been able to get ahead of the challenges we've had and then something else happens and it shifts. That goes back to the start of the year – we maybe would have taken a different approach knowing the kind of season we had ahead."
Postecoglou suggested that the Premier League should reconsider the 'draining' schedule. The Tottenham boss added: "There's no doubt that the schedule is too draining. There will come a breaking point – there's no doubt about that.
"What's happened to us this year, you saw with Newcastle and Brighton last year. Teams that looked like they were in ascendency fall off... mainly because of their injuries more than anything else.
"It happened to us this year. It's affected Villa to a certain extent, it's affected City to a certain extent. I think you'll see it affect teams in Europe next year.
"At some point the league will sit down and say: this is unsustainable, we need to make some changes. Whether that's a break or less games, that will definitely come to a head."
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