Ange Postecoglou exclusive: Tottenham manager on proving himself, first-season fluctuations and Champions League hopes

"I think about it that I have to walk into a dressing room and prove myself from the first day irrespective of what I've done in the past. I don't think that's a bad thing, necessarily."

When Ange Postecoglou first walked through the door at the Tottenham Hotspur Training Centre, beamed his first smile and uttered his first "mate", he had no certainty the team he had inherited would listen to a word he had to say.

The 58-year-old has strong beliefs about why it has taken him 25 years in coaching to reach the Premier League, how his Australian accent has held him back as much as anything on his CV. "It was so depressing," he recalled in one interview about being snubbed by contact after contact even when he was managing his national side.

This was also a dressing room which had already sent Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte packing within two years of one another. The one thing he could fall back on was the same conviction which had helped convince Daniel Levy he was the man to implement the step change Tottenham badly needed.

"It doesn't matter how good the idea is, if people don't believe in me then they're not likely to follow," he tells Sky Sports.

"I've never walked into a dressing room where my reputation preceded me to such an extent that I had people's attention straight away, I've had to earn it.

"I'm just myself. I haven't ever changed as a person. If you walk into a room and try to be something you're not, dressing rooms in particular have a pretty quick way of sniffing that out.

"With me, people realise straight away it's who I am, I really believe in what I do - and when you have that, people are willing to give yourself a chance.

"I enjoy the challenge of trying to get people to believe, I've said before - it's not