If you’ll indulge a short trip down a sideroad, I did some reading before and after Tottenham’s defeat at Chelsea about men of faith whose beliefs align with an appetite for risk. Eventually, that journey slithered its way to an American preacher named Jamie Coots.

Snakes were his thing. Yes, he was one of those guys. He’d stand at the front of his church in Kentucky and no matter how often the rattlers got him, he kept making it back to the stage to deliver his message, ever more convinced he had it right.

Which was all well and good until the ninth time he was bitten - he’s been gone 10 years now. If there’s a point here, it might be the value of balancing devotion with self-preservation. Of knowing the correct moment to tweak your approach in service to an ideology.

So what do we make of Ange Postecoglou in the dafter business of football?

Since he came into our orbit, he’s been the preacher standing over the Premier League’s vivarium - you can’t spell evangelical without Ange. He has his guiding principles on how this silly game should be played, his ‘religion’ as he puts it, and he’s not for turning.

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou has stuck to his 'faith' through the good times and the bad

He stuck to it when Tottenham were flying, he stuck to it when they had nine men against Chelsea in November, and he stuck to it when it all went wrong against the same team on Thursday. He will stick with it at Liverpool on Sunday even if it means a fourth loss in a row. And he will stick with it what was once top spot after 11 games withers to sixth after 38.

He will keep to his theory that everything, including those many goals conceded to set-pieces, is of lesser importance, of lower priority, than getting his players to buy into his vision of attacking football. Pass backwards? Ask Cristian Romero and Pape Sarr what their manager thinks about that. Ask him about free-kicks again and he might pass you the rattlesnake.

And isn’t that a bit weird and wonderful? Such lack of flexibility can be flawed and self-defeating in his line of work, and usually is, but it is fabulous in less conventional ways.

I loved an interview he gave to Mail Sport on this subject back in the happier days of November. That was when Spurs’s opening run of eight wins and two draws ended with a cavalier defeat against Chelsea and a limper one at Wolves. Folk had just started to query, rather sensibly, if there was something to be said for holding back a little more, but he wasn’t having it.

'I don't know any other way,' he told Ian Ladyman and Chris Sutton. 'In the broad church of football philosophies, I have stayed really strict to one religion. I went into a library of football books and got stuck on one section that was about attacking football. It's the only space I feel comfortable in.’

He’s had that vibe since he got here and it might even be the most consistent aspect about Tottenham’s season. By last Wednesday, so a day before the worst half of their campaign against Chelsea, Postecoglou had built on his theme, first when he spoke of the need within his squad for ‘true believers’ in his teachings, and then in the context of their woeful set-piece record.

The latter was taking on some urgency because Spurs had conceded 14 through such means and he was asked if it was a concern. ‘Not in the least,’ he said, before reaching once more into the box of snakes. ‘To quote Billy Joel, “You may be right, I may be crazy, but it’s maybe a lunatic you’re looking for”.

‘There is an underlying reason for that which I’m very comfortable with. Eventually I will create a team that has success and it won’t be because of working on set-pieces.’

Plainly the sentiment around set-pieces feels a touch senseless, if he was to be taken at face value, because Tottenham were bitten twice by free-kicks against Chelsea. Only three other sides have let in more and they are all in the bottom four of the division. Manchester City and Arsenal are not in the top two solely because of their set-pieces, but it’s hardly irrelevant that they also have the two best records defending dead balls. Just as they are both in the top three for scoring from them and Spurs are joint 10th.

Short of Postecoglou being traumatised by an errant free-kick as a child, it is hard to understand any ‘underlying reason’ for why he seems so resistant to enhancing this aspect of his coaching operation. It is a sporting madness to leave the stone unturned when so many rivals are giving it fanatical importance.

But Postecoglou is also right about something – he is the lunatic we have been looking for.

He is the 58-year-old man who, having taken such a long road to the Premier League, is determined to do it his way. A Sinatra who quotes Billy Joel. A friend of football’s most exciting form and a manager who turned mate into a slightly dirty word. He is the edgy old romantic unwilling to sell himself out at a point when English football has flogged FA Cup replays and might soon send a few games over to the US.

On a less ethereal level, he is the coach who arrived at Tottenham and almost immediately lost Harry Kane. That was the same as moving into a palace and finding a cobra in your bed – he simply picked it up and started preaching his way to the top, if only for a while.

Currently, he looks and sounds like a manager on the wrong end of a painful biting. That’s a disappointment we might balance against a record which shows Postecoglou has amassed 60 points through 34 games - it’s three more than Mikel Arteta managed in his first 38 at Arsenal and he’s tracking to exceed Jurgen Klopp for the same span. The set-piece numbers are dire, sure, but the ones you see in the table ought to take most of the venom out of the inquest.

The question is how he adjusts amid the subtly shifting mood towards his work. To those doubts that are creeping in externally around some of his wisdom.

If we are to recall the brilliant interview he did in these pages last year, you will find a few clues, remembering that it came on the back of two defeats.

‘Perversely this is the bit I love,’ he said. ‘It tests me as a person. It tests my belief.’

The fresh fang marks in his hands would suggest he is still keeping the faith, from the good bits to the bad to the senseless. Buried beneath the lunacy of it all, there’s a real beauty in that.

Jude Bellingham's immaturity showed 

I was at the Allianz Arena for Bayern Munich’s Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid on Tuesday and it spawned a couple of thoughts. 

One centred on Jude Bellingham’s immature efforts to put off Harry Kane before his penalty - if he doesn’t yet recognise the futility of baiting a stone-cold killer, it would suggest this boy genius still has some learning to do. 

The other concerned ticket prices – the cheapest were just 19 euros. The Germans have shown us up on the pitch and off it in this year’s competition.

Tiger Woods is still a warrior in pleated slacks 

There would be no disputing Tiger Woods’s right to a special invitation to contest next month’s US Open, despite failing to qualify for the first time since 1992. 

Making the cut at the Masters showed he is still a warrior in pleated slacks, but his claim at Augusta that he is not yet a ceremonial golfer seems to be on shakier ground.