Postecoglou bemoans 'negative narrative' around Spurs

Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou has bemoaned the "negative narrative" around the club despite their success in the Europa League.

On Thursday, Spurs defeated Bodo/Glimt 3-1 in the first leg of their Europa League semi-final, but in the Premier League they sit 16th having lost 19 of their 34 games.

Tottenham's struggles this season have heaped pressure on Postecoglou and sparked protests against club chairman Daniel Levy.

"I've said before, the narrative around the club is not positive at all," Postecoglou said before his side's league trip to West Ham on Sunday (14:00 BST).

"Whether you follow the club or not, there's always some sort of negative connotations to everything that happens at the club, but that's existed for a very long time - you need to break through that."

Postecoglou felt the atmosphere inside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium became nervous and tense after Bodo/Glimt pulled a goal back in the 84th minute, but believes his players will stay positive as they try to win silverware for the first time since 2008.

"Tottenham supporters have had some real near misses for a long time, so there's always this safeguard of not getting too excited about what's happening, but part of creating a winning culture is not to fall into that trap," he said.

"Winners don't think about things in that way. They don't think about what could possibly go wrong. They have a real clarity around what they need to do to win and I'm trying to create that with this group of players.

"If you expect something to go wrong, it will. So you try to rail against that, but how you do that is just a clear-eyed focus on what's important."

This is not the first time the Australian manager has commented on the culture at the club - last month he said that someone inside Spurs is leaking injury news.

Postecoglou confirmed that Lucas Bergvall will likely miss the rest of the season with an ankle injury, while James Maddison will have a scan after injuring his knee on Thursday.

Dominic Solanke picked up a thigh injury against the Norwegian side and is a doubt to face West Ham on Sunday.