Simon Jordan and Martin Keown were embroiled in a feisty debate on talkSPORT about Tottenham’s issues under Ange Postecoglou.
Spurs experienced a dramatic collapse on Sunday as they fell to a 3-2 defeat away at Brighton, despite holding a two-goal lead at half-time, and Arsenal legend Keown couldn’t resist a pop at his old rivals.
Postecoglou described the loss as the club’s ‘worst’ of his tenure in north London and hinted at a problem with the players’ menatlity.
Jordan and Keown were discussing the Spurs boss on White and Jordan the following morning, with his set-piece struggles a topic of conversation.
However, it was Keown’s reference to the Gunners that was a cause for things to get heated in the talkSPORT studio.
“Now I think he has to be perfect in everything he does,” said the three-time Premier League winner with the Gunners.
“There are some teams now… if you look at it back in the day, the teams that played direct football, percentage football, you’re going to say your Boltons and your Wimbledons…”
“And they got vilified,” said Jordan, before Martin continued: “They were very good at set-pieces. But now, the best team at set-pieces is one of the teams that actually plays the best football, Arsenal. So what you need to do is you need to invest first in class for every area.”
“How did you shoe Arsenal into this conversation?” Jordan asked after expressing bemusement on his face, but Keown defiantly responded: “Because it’s a fact!
“So what he [Postecoglou] needs to do is, if his rivals or the other teams or competitions in that division are doing better in that area, he has to do better himself. He has to spend more time on the training pitch…”
“But they’ve been given latitude to build, Jordan interrupted. “They didn’t start like this.
“Arsenal didn’t start like this, [Mikel] Arteta didn’t turn your library into a cheering fanbase, it took him some time do to it, so you’ve got to give people a degree of ability to change the culture.”
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Later on in the discussion, host Jim White read a message from a Spurs listener: “Is Martin not forgetting how long it’s taken Arteta to build this Arsenal team?
“Shut up Martin, you’re an Arsenal cheerleader.”
Jordan and Keown then resumed their argument, with the ex-Gunner saying: “We’re talking about a football club changing a culture.”
However, Jordan wasn’t having it and replied: “And we’re talking about your club who haven’t won a league in 20 years, so shut up!”
“Yeah but we’ve won trophies,” Keown insisted before adding: “We’re winning football matches.”
However, the talkSPORT duo did finally see eye-to-eye as Jordan agreed with Keown when he said: “I’m talking about there being no balance in his team.
“If he [Postecoglou] strikes a balance, they can be successful, but the manager has to step out of his ego and say, ‘Right, OK, we haven’t got to win this 6-0, we just need to win it 2-0.'”
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Spurs have now lost three of their opening seven Premier League matches of the season and are ninth in the table.
Their form outside of the top flight has been more impressive, though, as they currently sit third in the Europa League with two wins from two.
