Ange Postecoglou’s claim that his job is harder than the Prime Minister’s may have been laced with exaggeration – but his own players did their best to support his case on another chaotic night out with Tottenham’s great entertainers.
Spurs eventually overcame United with a 4-3 win to reach the last four, but that scoreline barely touches the sides of an extraordinary night at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium – or some might say just an ordinary one given their previous form for mayhem.
In the build-up to their Carabao Cup quarter-final against Manchester United, Postecoglou said: “This job is the hardest in any walk of life. How many times does Keir Starmer have an election? I have one every weekend and I either get voted in or out.”
In election terms, Postecoglou was heading for a landslide at 3-0 up after 54 minutes but ended up having to gratefully settle for a narrow majority.
This was after goalkeeper Fraser Forster gifted United two goals, Son Heung-min’s fourth providing some relief in a panic-stricken stadium before Jonny Evans’ third for United restored the tension for the final seconds.
The big ticket in Postecoglou’s manifesto is all-out, full-throttle entertainment – and by that measure he is delivering on every word of his promises.
“Are you not entertained?” he asked after a night that was pure theatre, a mixture of high quality and farce, but also which actually put Spurs in sight of Wembley and still in the running for their first silverware since their 2008 win in this competition.
Entertaining? Most certainly. And the Spurs fans who drifted away looking on the brink of exhaustion will probably agree once blood pressures return to normal levels.
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