Row Z: Grumpy Ange cries conspiracy, ref body cams and the Juric is out… again

Welcome to Row Z, The Athletic’s weekly column that shines a light on the bonkers side of the game.

From clubs to managers, players to organisations, every Friday we’ll bring you the absurdities, the greed, the contradictions, the preposterousness and the oddities of the game we all love…

The wider Tottenham conspiracy

Remember when Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou was a breath of fresh air because he just told it like it was and didn’t peddle the party line with bland, media-trained nonsense? He said ‘mate’! He’s one of us!

Anyway, yeah, that didn’t last long.

Here’s grumpy Ange taking umbrage with a perfectly legitimate question about whether Brennan Johnson should have taken Tottenham’s 96th-minute penalty against Southampton (given he was on a hat-trick) instead of Mathys Tel.

“It’s incredible, it’s just literally turning gold into crap when it’s Tottenham,” he railed. “I mean the one slight against this club is apparently it hasn’t been a winner.”

We’ll stop you right there, Ange. There’s not much of an ‘apparently’ about it, to be honest. Sorry, carry on.

“Well, the winner’s mentality in the last minute of the game is to score a goal. We scored a goal and yet somehow, in this ultimate universe where everything Tottenham does is wrong, that’s come out as a negative.”

The ultimate Tottenham universe, a truly terrifying concept where people pay £5,000 per ticket to watch the team finish bottom of a closed-shop Super League every single year.

Anyway, in classic I’m-about-to-be-sacked-so-I’m-losing-the-plot-in-press-conferences fare (see also Erik ten Hag last year and Antonio Conte in 2023), Postecoglou seems to think there’s a perception problem with Spurs.

The fact they’re 13th in the Premier League and haven’t won a trophy since 2009 is completely irrelevant. The real issue is that people just don’t stick up for Spurs in the media.

“I hear plenty of people talking and defending other clubs, but it seems like with Tottenham, wherever there’s a sore, there’s a little pile-on to sort of stick a finger in that sore,” he said last Friday. “Then we kind of accept our fate.

“Talking about bigger clubs, there seems to be a lot more voices. You need scrutiny and constructive criticism as well, but we certainly get enough of that but never any of the other stuff.”

That’s right, Spurs just never get the other stuff. You never see Darren Anderton on The Overlap defending their record of losing 16 matches this season. And when was the last time Ramon Vega was invited on Match of the Day to argue the case for Daniel Levy (24 years, 16 managers, one trophy)?

Honestly, it’s a conspiracy.

Postecoglou waits for the pile on (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Referees as you never saw them before

Only 64 days until the Club World Cup, folks! Hurrah!

Continuing with the tournament’s theme of innovation — i.e. an imaginative idea of creating a big summer tournament with loads of big teams that no one actually wants to watch — FIFA has announced that referees will wear body cameras during the competition.

FIFA referees committee chairman Pierluigi Collina said: “We think that it is a good chance to offer the viewers a new experience, in terms of images taken from a perspective, from an angle of vision which was never offered before.”

Yep, see how absolutely knackered and completely nonplussed the players are from a totally new angle.

Collina will offer refs as you have never seen them before (Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images)

The Juric is out

How’s your year been at work? Not got that raise you wanted? Accidentally left your Zoom on following a work call and slagged off your boss? Anyway, whatever’s happened in the last, oh, seven months, we’re guessing work won’t have gone as badly as it has for Ivan Juric.

Here’s his 2024/25 season so far:

September 18, 2024
Appointed manager of Roma until the end of the season. Loses five of his first 12 matches in all competitions

November 10, 2024
Sacked with Roma 12th in Serie A and 20th in the Europa League

December 23, 2024
Appointed manager of Southampton on an 18-month contract. Loses 13 of his first 16 matches in all competitions

April 7, 2025
Sacked with Southampton 20th in the Premier League and relegated to the Championship

Juric watches Southampton succumb to relegation at Tottenham (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Juric had done well in Italy earlier in his career with Crotone, Hellas Verona and Torino. Is there a school of thought here that the guy just needs a bit of time to implement his ideas?

That was a notion publicly proposed by, well, Southampton no less when writing this on their official website after appointing Juric: “That ability to outperform his resources attracted the advances of Roma, but Juric, like club legend Daniele De Rossi before him, was not afforded enough time to make his mark.”

“It’s a very explosive situation, born after De Rossi’s dismissal,” the Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini, a well-respected figure in Italian football, told Radio Anch’io Sport. “He took on a very hot potato. Ivan is a good coach, he knows how to work. If he is supported, he can produce results.”

Oh, OK, it’s the club that’s the problem, not Juric. Roma were a hot potato. Funny, Southampton didn’t mention how hot, or indeed mouldy, their particular potato is when firing him.

A hefty social media corner

Talking of Southampton, they formed part of a week for the ages for club social media accounts.

Here are the Saints announcing their relegation from the Premier League in the manner of a club which has just confirmed its League One play-off spot.

Someone let the work experience kid take over Stevenage’s account during their match against Crawley Town…

You can’t knock the honesty of Woking’s admin after their FA Trophy semi-final defeat to local rivals Aldershot Town…

Walsall posted this fairly harmless promotional tweet before their big game against League Two promotion rivals Port Vale…

And Port Vale responded with an incredibly niche and apt reference…

Meanwhile, when arguably your greatest player of all time has announced he’s leaving the club forever, it’s a sad day.

But when you can reveal your new Vietnamese Energy Drinks Partner (their capitals, not ours), it’s a good day.

And finally, tweet of the week comes from Tom Dutton.

Sure, Crystal Palace moved up to the giddy heights of 11th last weekend, but we all know where they’re going to finish next month.

(Top photo: Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

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