'I still believe in his system' - Micky van de Ven admits he 'never expected' Ange Postecoglou's sacking at Tottenham as Dutch defender delivers honest verdict on Thomas Frank

Postecoglou has gone on to generate more unfortunate headlines in England after lasting just 39 days in charge of Nottingham Forest during the 2025-26 campaign. That position at the City Ground had seen him return to management following his dismissal by Tottenham.

A 17th-place finish in the Premier League was overseen there, but Spurs did savour tangible success in continental competition - with domestic rivals Manchester United being seen off on a memorable night in Bilbao.

Van de Ven, who was signed by Postecoglou in 2023, has told The Overlap - brought to you by Sky Bet - of seeing an enigmatic tactician dismissed in north London: “When we were getting further in the Europa League, sometimes we would sit down with him and say, ‘We need to adapt sometimes’. That wasn’t only with him – that was also with his assistant and other coaches.

“He is a really good manager – I still really like him. I don’t know how it all went down behind the scenes, winning the Europa League then getting sacked. I didn’t expect Ange to be sacked. There were a lot of rumours, and everyone was on Ange, like the media – there was not a day I was scrolling on my phone and saw nothing about our gaffer. There was always something about him.

“It was strange how everything went afterwards. He was the manager that brought silverware to Tottenham – then afterwards when he got sacked, I sent a text to my dad and my friends, and said, ‘I never expected this’.

“I texted Ange as well and said, ‘All the best in the future. I didn’t say it was a strange decision from the club, but I said I never expected this to happen and I thanked him for the two years I had with him. I had a good relationship with him, I was close with him, and he was also the manager that brought me to Tottenham.”

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On Postecoglou’s tactical blueprint, which saw him favour a high line, Van de Ven added: “We pressed forward for 90 minutes and of course, you ask a lot of your body playing every three days. When the results were getting down, Ange was really focused on his system and really believed in his system, and even until today I still believe in his system because we played some unbelievable football. The system works but at some points we just needed to adapt a bit more than we did at that point.”

Van de Ven went on to say of Tottenham being left exposed at the back, with discussions held between playing and coaching staff: “At the beginning of the season [the first under Ange] everything was new, so no team was used to playing against our system at that point. We were playing unbelievable football but then the injuries came and suspensions came which changed things, but before we were flying.

“Managers these days analyse everything – they have four or five people around them who analyse everything about the opponent – and at that point people knew what we were doing and sometimes we didn’t really have a plan B, so were getting exposed without having solutions.

“At one point, we spoke with the manager and said that sometimes we need to change some things because we were getting too exposed. Of course, we won the Europa League and knew that this was a big opportunity for us to bring silverware to Tottenham, but we needed to change things. In games where we were 1-0 up, we can’t keep playing our football, sometimes we needed to sit back and make sure that nothing was coming through us. And that helped us at the end to of course win the Europa League.”

Postecoglou ultimately paid the price for refusing to change his ways, with a similar fate being suffered at Forest. He finds himself without a club at present, while Spurs successor Thomas Frank is seeing his future called into question after picking up just 10 wins from 25 games - with only one victory being secured through the club’s last seven Premier League fixtures.

Van de Ven said of his current boss: “The new gaffer came in and has his new way of playing and thoughts about the game. When he came in pre-season, it was [him teaching us] everything about his system, because we’re going to need to play a totally different system compared to Ange. Now, it’s a lot of walk-throughs and technical stuff. Before every game, we do some tactical work about the opponent- the meetings and everything is the same as it was under Ange in terms of scouting the opponent.

“It’s different of course, the way Ange thinks about football and how Frank thinks about football. The meetings are the same but it’s a lot of walk-throughs we do with Thomas Frank. You play so many games, so we just go out and walk through everything. It’s Italian-style. I liked the offensive football, but I also like what we have now with Frank, now that we are more secure in the back and not getting exposed in some situations.”