Outsider’s rough road to the top means Spurs sceptics won’t worry Postecoglou

ANGE POSTECOGLOU will have his work cut out to win over some Tottenham fans.

- Dan Kilpatrick

There is lots to like about Postecoglou, who has a strong track record of success, but, at 57, he has never managed in one of Europe's 'top five' leagues and his fine work at Celtic has to be considered in the context of their historic dominance of Scottish football.

Two years after arriving at Parkhead as "a joke", Postecoglou leaves Celtic a legend, and at Spurs he will similarly have to convert the sceptics who believe he has not earned one of the biggest jobs in English football.

For the Australian, being doubted is nothing new, however, and Postecoglou's remarkable but often bumpy rise from obscurity to the top of the European game is characterised by a fierce drive and a determination to do things his way.

Almost everywhere he has gone, from the Australia national team to Japanese club Yokohama F Marinos, Postecoglou has faced calls to be more pragmatic or conservative, but he has never wavered from his ultra-attacking, high-octane football which should eventually prove a good fit for Spurs.

"The drive he has definitely comes from a deep place - he's always had something to prove," former Manchester United and Australia goalkeeper Mark Bosnich said of Postecoglou, who was born in Greece but emigrated to Australia with his parents aged five.

"He grew up at a time when a lot of us from migrant families found it difficult to be embraced by the whole of society and playing football you were seen as an outsider," added Bosnich, himself the son of a Croatian migrant. "So he's always been a bit of an outsider.

"Football down here was always seen as a sport in the majority played by immigrants. That grounded him and moulded him to that outsider mentality."