In 2005, back when he was still playing the character of a buffoonish right-wing television pundit, comedian Stephen Colbert coined the term ‘truthiness’. It refers to something that feels true, based on a person’s beliefs or perceptions, but isn’t actually supported by facts or evidence; not that that’s ever stopped anyone before or since.

There is a fair bit of truthiness to the criticisms of Ange Postecoglou’s football. Always has been. Nothing’s really changed, aside from the personnel and the setting: instead of Robbie Slater and Mark Bosnich on Fox Sports in Australia a decade ago, pleading with the then-Socceroos coach to be a little more defensively minded sometimes, we now have Jamie Carragher and Jamie Redknapp on Sky Sports in the United Kingdom, saying essentially the same thing.

After Tottenham Hotspur’s rollercoaster 4-3 win over Manchester United on Friday morning (AEDT), which saw them advance to the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, they were at it again.

Carragher condescendingly talked up Postecoglou’s commitment to attacking football as admirable - but then suggested that, because maybe the commentators have a better vantage point of the pitch than he would from the dugout, that they might have a better understanding of Spurs’ on-field issues.

And since they’ve noticed that he hardly ever gives out instructions from the sideline during a match, Carragher said that sometimes, Postecoglou’s players should actively disobey him, ignore his tactics and “get hold of that game” instead, presumably by sitting back and defending their lead and draining the clock without incident.

Game management, they call it.

Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs are into the Carabao Cup semi-finals.Credit: Getty Images

Spurs were 1-0 up at half-time, scored twice in the first nine minutes of the second half to lead 3-0, then hit the self-destruct button in the last half-hour. Hence the........

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