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The club's former chief football officer has taken part in an interview in his homeland and opened up on his time in north London
Tottenham's former chief football officer Scott Munn has said he was unable to push through all of the changes he wanted to in the club's medical department to stop the constant injury problems.
The Australian spent just two years at the club after arriving from The City Group and while he oversaw a period in which Spurs won the Europa League, his fate appeared to be somewhat tied to that of head coach Ange Postecoglou after the club's 17th-place finish in the Premier League.
Once Postecoglou departed, Munn was placed on gardening leave and it was not long before long-time chairman Daniel Levy also departed from his role with CEO Vinai Venkatesham taking charge of the day-to-day running of the club.
With Munn's gardening leave now over he has now become head of football for the Krause Group, which owns a 90% stake in Serie A club Parma. Munn has now opened up on his time at Spurs, his frustrations and what he enjoyed about his time in N17, in an interview with Australian media outlet Football 360.
He was asked about the club's injury problems which have continued this season with Igor Tudor taking over after Thomas Frank's unsuccessful and brief tenure to discover just 13 outfield players available for his first training session with many of those absent out with long-term injuries.
"We did a review into every department – the academy, medicine, everything… So yes, that happened. We wanted to come through with a number of changes and take the medical department to a level that equated to a big club in England. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make the changes we recommended – some parts were accepted, other parts weren’t. That wasn’t an optimal outcome," said Munn.
"If you look at this year’s injury position, not much has changed. You need to look at it in totality, and there’s many parts to this…but yes ok, I’ll wear that accusation."
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With Frank struggling to improve Tottenham after Postecoglou's departure, Munn pointed towards the culture around the club compared to his previous job with The City Group.
"History shows it has been 17 managers in 20 years or something – for me it’s about actions along with the results," he said. "If you are with a club and you don’t win anything, then that’s a pretty important measure. I remember a CFG board meeting, and we (Manchester City) had finished second in the Premier League the year before. The Chairman – Khaldoon Al-Mubarak – started the meeting by saying that wasn’t acceptable! That was instilled in everything we did in the club.
"I didn’t have that same feeling at Spurs. At that level, the margin for error is so small that culture and mentality can be the difference between three points on a Saturday.
"There were two significant games for me at Spurs – one was against Chelsea, when we went down to nine men and we kept chasing the game, (goalkeeper Guglielmo) Vicario was on the halfway line acting as a sweeper. Even though we ended up losing the game, we felt that was how we wanted to play. The second one was the Manchester City game – the sentiment from the fans, indicating that they’d prefer to lose the game to ensure Arsenal didn’t win the league. I couldn’t get that in my head. I got the fan rivalry – but when you work in football and don’t want to win, I can’t understand that."
Munn enjoyed his time at Tottenham and his relationship with Postecoglou though.
"I learned a lot professionally and I made amazing friends. I didn’t know Ange previously or his staff. On the field – the key metrics were that we were fifth in the first year after finishing eighth the season before. The second year we won the club's first trophy in 20 years and we qualified for the UEFA Champions League – on those measures you’d say we did a pretty good job in trying circumstances," he said.
"We all understand the Premier League performance wasn’t good enough, but we had to make a decision on what outcome was better for us – a higher Premier League finish, or to put all our efforts into success in Europe, and we did that."
Postecoglou in particular left an impression on Munn and the former CFO praised his leadership skills.
"We stay in touch – I am having lunch with him on Friday! He’s an amazing sounding board, and he’s quite a selfless leader – he’ll take responsibility, and will make sure others perform around him. The team we had supporting Ange – Nick Montgomery is now at Beijing Guoan, Mile [Jedinak] is back with the Socceroos, Serge (Raimundo) is working for me," he said.
"All went back into big jobs very quickly – and that’s because he provides a great platform to give people opportunity. We went through a pretty unique moment together. Where will he end up? I think any manager that’s out of the game, even for five minutes, misses the daily interaction with players and staff and preparing for the next game. I absolutely know that he would be looking forward to getting back."
On the criticism Postecoglou faced from the UK media, Munn pointed to the scrutiny in the Premier League for all managers.
"Well, in Australia I worked in AFL so I’m not naïve – but the daily scrutiny in the Premier League is like nothing else in the world. I found it quite suffocating at times, with the protection you need around you – the level of exposure, people being in your face all the time, it’s like nothing else. In AFL, it’s only 30 games a season – I don’t know if people quite understand that in Australia," he said.
"I also think the scrutiny on Spurs is next level – I think it’s much larger than (for example) at Manchester City. There are more journalists in London for a start – if you are in a one, or two team city you can manage that better.
"I don’t think it was personal or vengeful towards Ange, but I think certainly some media found it intriguing and didn’t understand it – a Greek-Australian coming via Japan, how did he end up here? I felt there were some things that were unfair, but Ange is well-read, well-educated, and I think they got that towards the end of the first year."
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