GRAEME SOUNESS: There's one very good reason why Ange Postecoglou can't tell us what he really thinks of his Tottenham players

A manager’s job is nigh on impossible these days, as Ange Postecoglou is finding out.

You can’t say what you really want to say and using phrases like ‘unacceptable’ after a derby game are about as strong as you can probably go in public today. The stronger words are for the dressing room.

But he has used these terms before and you can’t keep repeating yourself game after game, especially when you have lost 11 Premier League games by January.

Obviously the message is not getting across. As Ronnie Moran, our coach at Liverpool, used to say to us: ‘This is the second time I’ve had to tell you, that means one thing, if you need telling again, you are not a Liverpool player and you won’t be here very long.’

It’s tricky, as you’d like to vent your true feelings, but do that and you lose some of the dressing room before, inevitably, losing all of the dressing room.

There’s only so often you can say ‘it is unacceptable’ because both the fans and the board will be asking: ‘Why can’t you fix this problem?’

You can’t say what you really want to say in public – stronger words are for the dressing room

If you vent your true feelings, you lose some of the dressing room before, inevitably, losing it all

If you do lose the dressing room then it’s a straightforward money decision that the board have to make. Then it boils down to asset value. And if it’s down to losing a multi-million pound squad or the manager, there’s only one winner.

I think now is the time where Ange has to try both a different approach and also use different phraseology to get his message across, to see if he can get a new tune out of this bunch.

I get his frustration. It’s a mystery how his team can beat Manchester City, even though they were in a difficult period, beat Liverpool and Manchester United in the cups yet falter in the Premier League so often.

The problem is the manager has a group of players where he doesn’t know what he’s going to get from six or seven of them every game. That’s not a great place to be and it makes for indifferent performances.

In the successful teams the manager knows what he is going to get from the majority of his players every game. As a manager you need to have confidence in what you are getting when you send them out of the dressing room. Spurs have been labelled ‘milky’ and that is the correct terminology when you are up and down the way they are.

The challenge for Ange is to have a Plan B. It’s OK when you are managing Celtic and you have the best players in the domestic league. There, his approach would have been the same every single week, both home and away: Let’s just outscore them. We’ll push up to the halfway line and teams will occasionally play through our press but we will eventually score more goals than them.

But, when you come down to England and try and play the same front-foot football against teams that are better at it than you, there’s generally only one outcome. You are asking your players to outgun the opposition except one big problem is, they’ve got bigger guns than you!

His squad has good players but not great players. And with captain Son Heung-min, the evidence is his best days may be behind him.

They play in a fashion where if they come up against the better teams, they will invariably get beaten, as they did at Arsenal on Wednesday. At times, they will have to find a more pragmatic approach against the best teams, or Ange will pay the price.

Ange needs a Plan B – you are going to get caught out when you try and score more than your opponents in England

Record-breaking Magpies

My experience at Newcastle United was that you were only ever one game from the roof caving in.

By beating Wolves the other night, Eddie Howe’s side surpassed the record my Newcastle side achieved of eight straight wins in 2005. That run ended against Aston Villa when Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer decided to exchange blows on the pitch and were both sent off.

They are actually both very good lads to be fair but, on the day, the frustration of the way the game was going got to both of them. We went on to reach the UEFA Cup quarter-final and semi-final of the FA Cup but it still wasn’t enough.

It is a very difficult job that can quickly turn negative, in part, because of not winning a major trophy since 1969. Everything can be rosy in the world at the club on Friday but by Sunday everything is wrong.

Eddie’s side have now won nine on the spin, a run achieved by Kevin Keegan’s side, and I’d say this is the best Newcastle I’ve seen since Kevin’s team. They are nine points off the top and, if they are lucky with injuries, they can be serious challengers to Liverpool.

None of the big boys will want to play that team, they are full of beans, and in Alexander Isak, they have the in-form striker in the Premier League. It is one hell of a difficult place to go, Newcastle, when the supporters back their team.

Inside that dressing room, they won’t be shouting it publicly, but they have to believe they can run Liverpool close.

Eddie has managed it well but the core reason for being able to do that has been their fabulous recruitment.

They have two high-energy, quality young full backs and a midfield that takes great delight in hunting you down. They are not only flair players but talented, workmanlike players who do the hard yards and ensure no one enjoys playing against them.

I have to give credit to Anthony Gordon too. I gave him stick for being a diver when he was at Everton but he has worked to improve. He was unfortunate at the European Championship as, in Gareth Southgate, he had an England manager who should have trusted him more. Like Isak, he has transformed into a true game-changer.

The big job for Newcastle and Eddie going forward is holding onto these players now.

This is the best team since Keegan’s side – they can be serious challengers to Liverpool

In Alexander Isak they have the most in-form striker in the Premier League – he is on a fine run

Havertz is too nice to be an elite striker

It’s obvious Arsenal need a 20-goal a season goalscorer. Declan Rice came out after the win over Tottenham the other night and said: ‘We could have scored 10’. But they didn’t.

They have a disproportionate amount of goals from set-pieces, 12 out of their tally of 41, 10 from corners alone. Liverpool, by comparison, the team Arsenal are trying to catch, have scored three from set-pieces.

Other statistics tell you Arsenal’s big problem this season is finishing chances. Kai Havertz is their top scorer with seven Premier League goals. After him, you have Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli with five, Leandro Trossard with four and Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Magalhaes with three.

They don’t have enough goals in that team when you compare them with Liverpool. Take out their set-pieces, where would they be in the league? Fighting to be in the top six.

I questioned why they paid £65million to Chelsea for Kai Havertz. I said at the time Arteta must think he can improve him because you wouldn’t pay that for his performances and goalscoring. He scored 19 league goals in three seasons. That’s nowhere near enough goals for a striker or attacking midfield player.

My description of him would be he’s too nice. I’m sure he’d make a great son-in-law but he hasn’t got enough devilment in him. And Jesus is more of the same – 18 league goals in 70 games. If he was a top-level finisher, Manchester City wouldn’t have let him go. It’s blatantly obvious that those two are not the answer.

They have to do the hardest job in recruitment of finding that man that scores for fun on a regular basis and takes them from being nearly men to champions. It is paramount.

The current Liverpool team have their main goal-getter in Mo Salah and a raft of players that chip in. All the successful teams have players who share the goals around.

In the Liverpool side I played in, I foolishly used to have a £100 bet every pre-season with Terry McDermott that I would score more goals than him. By Christmas Day I’d already paid out. I scored a few but Terry was in front of everybody, scoring from midfield. When he won the PFA Player of the Year in 1980, he scored 16 goals in all competitions, but the following two seasons he scored 22 and 20.

Arsenal’s go-to forwards are struggling to get near those figures now. The current Liverpool have more goalscorers throughout their team than Arsenal – and that is why they are the outstanding favourites for this Premier League title.

Kai Havertz has scored 19 league goals in three seasons – that is nowhere near enough… he is too nice

Liverpool have more goalscorers throughout their team – that’s why they are title favourites

Kelly Cates (left) and Gabby Logan (right) are great picks for the Match of the Day line-up

Talented Kelly and Gabby just right for MOTD

I’m very happy that Gabby Logan and Kelly Cates are joining the Match of the Day line-up. They are both very talented and have great knowledge of our game having grown up in footballing families.

In Kelly’s case, we go back a long way to the early days of (mine and Kenny Dalglish’s) careers when we were all residents of the Holiday Inn, in Paradise Street, Liverpool, and I had to take her out on walks under strict orders from Marina, Kelly’s mum, to not bring her back until she was fast asleep in her pram.

I wish them well.