Spurs are milky. They have to find another way of playing, writes GRAEME SOUNESS, Ange Postecoglou insists on a gung-ho style… but the right way to play football is to get results

I look at the Tottenham team of today and I still see the Tottenham of yesterday – a team that was too easy to play against.

Ange Postecoglou has a way of playing that he sticks to and it’s all well and good to be principled. But the pressure will increase very quickly if he doesn’t adapt.

What I see now is the Spurs of recent decades, who have developed an unflattering reputation. The first thing a team in football must be is difficult to beat, with the ability to make life difficult for opponents. Right now, Spurs aren’t.

This is my first club, which is close to my heart, and they should be one of the big boys. They have arguably the best training ground in the country and the best stadium in the world. Still, they have a team that is milky. They sometimes play like a group of schoolboys.

I saw them against my old club Galatasaray this month and they could have conceded ten that night. Once again they were like children in a playground. They lost 3-2, but it should have been much more and that’s because they insisted on going through.

Ange insists on front foot football with a high line. That’s great if you’re confident and scoring goals, but if not, you need to find a different way to play and learn to manage matches. Spurs don’t do that, and that’s down to both the players and the manager.

As a player you have to get a feel for the game and read where it is going. When we were playing big European games at Liverpool and heading into the unknown, Joe Fagan would say to me, ‘Son, you’ll have a good look tonight, won’t you?’ I knew exactly what he meant: stay in goal, support the play, protect your centre-backs and let’s see where the game goes.

It seems like this Spurs team never looks like this. They believe they can beat any opponent.

When Ange came in, I liked him. He came across very well and his message was positive. But I’m worried now.

This is its second season. He has had a good look at the Premier League and the players he has. His job is to get the best out of them, but these players are better than they currently show.

My concerns about their playing style started last season when they lost at home to Chelsea and had two men sent off. They kept a high line that day, even though there were only nine men. I was surprised why Ange insisted on this and it speaks to his refusal to change the in-game approach in the twelve months since.

It’s okay to complain about Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte and a brand of football that isn’t entertaining. Now Spurs have someone to entertain them, but they look too vulnerable, as if they will concede goals against anyone, like against Ipswich last time. That’s five defeats from their last nine in the Premier League, the same number as promoted sides Ipswich and Leicester.

When you concede goals too easily, as Spurs have started to do, confidence disappears from the team very quickly. That’s when the old chestnut comes along: players lose confidence in the manager and he loses the dressing room.

Ange isn’t there yet, but they can’t continue as they are now, one step forward and two steps back.

I was at a party in London this week with some former Spurs lads and they’re not happy with how things are going.

I also use the example of Russell Martin at Southampton, as a manager who is so committed to a way of playing that it is detrimental to results. The same goes for Spurs.

It’s fine to talk about playing football ‘the right way’, but the right way to play football is to get results. Sometimes you have to be a completely different team in the second half than in the first half.

During my time at Liverpool we were considered the best passing team. But in the first 10 to 15 minutes of each game we did everything we could to make the field bigger until the game got into a rhythm.

Now, from the first whistle to the last, you see teams like Southampton rolling it out in their own penalty area. If they don’t change, they will be demoted. When you’re that predictable, everyone knows what to do when they play against you. When Martin calls Arne Slot before Sunday’s match against Liverpool and says: ‘How do you want me to play, Arne?’ I guarantee he’d say, ‘Why don’t you roll the ball out from the back? Because we can press very well, we will take it from you in and around your 18-yard box and score a goal.” It’s madness!

I remember last season when Manchester City played Real Madrid in the Champions League at the Etihad. In the second half, Carlo Ancelotti realized they couldn’t deal with City’s press and told his goalkeeper to launch it. This is Real Madrid, with the most successful club manager there has ever been, making the move to get a result. Yet the managers of Spurs, Southampton and others will not do that.

Things won’t get any easier for Ange at City on Saturday. Spurs will go there with a plan, but are they willing and able to adapt to the way the game is going? I don’t think so and that’s why I don’t see them making much progress.

They look like a team that will win some and lose some. Ultimately, that type of party never wins anything.

More to City’s struggles than no Rodri

Manchester City have lost four on the spin and much has been made of Rodri’s absence – rightly so.

But if you lose the main troublemaker, Kevin De Bruyne, there will be a fallout. He has scored and scored so many goals that have changed the games in tight situations.

Unfortunately, it seems that Father Time has caught up with him at the age of 33. He is a dynamic player, but the elasticity of your muscles is lost and you can no longer influence matches as you once did. For me, that, along with Rodri’s injury, is the biggest reason for City’s recent problems.

Pep Guardiola signed a contract extension this week – and the biggest challenge the manager now faces is finding a replacement for De Bruyne.

Amorim inspires

Whenever I see a manager who is new to a job, I go back to the player’s life and think, ‘If I were in that dressing room, how would I react to this man? Would he grab me?’.

I have to say I’ve liked what I’ve seen and heard from Ruben Amorim at Manchester United so far.

I never had the feeling that Erik ten Hag would inspire me as a player, but Amorim has something about him. He would grab me.

Amorim will bring an immediate improvement to United, I’m sure. But the bottom line is that they have too many casual players. That’s what he needs to address. And as a manager, time is not your friend. He must be wise and fortunate in the transfer market, which his predecessors were not.

Kane has been in trouble since joining Bayern

I was concerned when, last Saturday, while driving home, I listened to an interview with Harry Kane on the radio in which he justified himself and said that the statistics prove that he is still one of the best strikers in the world.

He shouldn’t be doing that, and I wondered, does he realize he’s starting to deteriorate?

Kane did not do well at all for England against the Republic of Ireland the next day. Yes, he played the glorious pass that changed the game, but I see a player at Bayern Munich who doesn’t look the same as the player we had in the Premier League.

The Bundesliga is not nearly as demanding as the Premier League.

I moved to Sampdoria in 1984 to play in Serie A, which had the best players in the world. I was there for a few months when I came back to visit Liverpool. I asked Ronnie Moran if I could train with them one day and we did at Anfield. We played an eight-on-8 match across the field in front of the Kop. I suddenly realized that I had fallen to the pace at which the Italians were playing.

As a player at Liverpool, who got as many touches as anyone in those small games, I couldn’t get the ball. The game passed me by.

Did that happen to Harry Kane at Bayern? Or are his legs gone?

Either way, there’s no denying he doesn’t look the same player.