ON HIS previous visit to North London, Ange Postecoglou was the centre of attention as he was serenaded by thousands of football fans.
On his return to the area, albeit in red-and-white enemy territory, he was once again the subject of the numerous chants.
Yet these ones were X-rated and far from family friendly – and sung well before the watershed!
Saturday marked 115 days since the Australian guided Tottenham to glorious Europa League success and ended the club’s Spursy tag, even if it is just for a few more years.
That tremendous success in Bilbao – they beat Manchester United 1-0 in the final – was not enough to keep him his job for a third season.
This is despite the Lilywhites fanbase giving him such a wonderful reception during the open-top bus parade along Seven Sisters Road.
As fate would have it, his first match in charge of Nottingham Forest, an appointment that happened very quickly when Nuno Espírito Santo was unsurprisingly sacked, was at Arsenal.
And shortly after Martin Zubimendi’s stunning 32-minute opener, an unsavoury chant first echoed around the Emirates Stadium.
“Cheer up Postecoglu. Oh what can it mean. To a Fat Aussie B******.And a s*** football team…."
It was incredibly harsh and incredibly undeserving – Peter Reid and Steve Bruce, from their time in the North East, could sympathise with that ditty, which reappeared in the second half.
But Postecoglou, a real football man, who has managed in the cauldron of the Old Firm, knew he was not going to get the red carpet treatment as he returned to English football.
“You’re getting sacked in the morning,” was another wisecrack from the Gunners supporters, and they certainly loved that one.
The Australian never won a North London Derby with Tottenham and he will have to wait until January 2026 at the City Ground for another crack at Mikel Arteta’s men.
The suggestion pre-match had been that Ange-Ball would be in full display but even at two-time European Champions Forest, where they really do believe in miracles, that would have been highly unlikely.
As he said beforehand, the Antipodean has to be pragmatic and work with his squad – he cannot simply make wholesale changes straightaway to the plans.
He might instinctively have a different style to Nuno’s counter-attacking methodology but it will take time – and maybe a pre-season – to implement it all properly.
Not in the three or four days on the training pitch he would have had with a brand new squad.
Postecoglou, who turned 60 last month, spoke highly of the dressing room he has inherited from Nuno and feels the squad have a clear vision of themselves and their direction.
Yet there is clearly work to be done to find the right solutions as they lost 3-0 for the second successive Premier League match.
It is also hard to judge anything from this match given that it was straight after the international break.
Chris Wood, for example, only lasted one hour and had to be managed carefully as he was playing two matches for New Zealand on the other side of the planet.
What did not help and altered his shape was losing Brazilian defender Murillo to a knock on 37 minutes, something he could not have foreseen in his planning.
Any Spurs fans watching on TV would have recognised the same old traits from their best manager this century.
There he was, standing on the edge of the technical area in a black jumper, trousers and trainers, sometimes his arms folded, other times with his hands in his pockets.
They breed them hard Down Under – even when the rain came he would have been the last person to ask for a brolly for comfort.
Unlike the jack-in-a-box Arteta who is constantly flapping his arms and shouting, Postecoglou is a more calm, measured man.
The only times he really showed emotion was when there was a perceived injustice or if the referee had been lenient in his eyes with a challenge.
Postecoglou is not the type to shout incessantly and make demands, he feels as if he has done all his work in the days beforehand and he trusts his players.
It is not to say he lacks passion for the job – he just does things differently to other hyperactive members of the top-flight fraternity.
As he walked off, he appeared to wave sarcastically to the home crowd that were left, something the Tottenham faithful would have loved.
Perhaps the ultimate insult, from an Arsenal perspective, came late on when they watched his new troops falter again without scoring, and gleefully sang: “Are you Tottenham in disguise?”
That is doubtful. But he wouldn’t mind a repeat of the Europa League triumph next May…