Tottenham Hotspur’s 1-0 win over Manchester United on Sunday wasn’t exactly champagne football, but you could absolutely see how a week’s rest and the return of five injured players affected their overall performance. Spurs secured their first win in 13 matches decided by one goal this season, and the team got important minutes for James Maddison, Wilson Odobert, Brennan Johnson, and Guglielmo Vicario.
That said, in his post-match press conference, Ange Postecoglou admitted that three of his players — Son Heung-Min, Rodrigo Bentancur, and Kevin Danso — picked up small knocks in the match. All three were substituted in the second half for Spurs.
“[Danso] got a knock on his knee. Him, Sonny and Rodri all got sort of knocks. I don’t think it is anything significant. But the beauty of it now is we can actually get them to recover instead of trying to patch them up and throw them out (onto the pitch) again midweek. I think from what I’ve heard, knocks all three of them but they should be fine.”
Tottenham certainly benefited from its returning players, which eased the burden on the healthy players and allowed Tottenham to effectively rotate and manage minutes. The end result was Tottenham’s third win over Manchester United this season, and more importantly an important milestone that indicates that Tottenham’s woes are starting to ease.
“I certainly believe there is still a hell of a lot on offer for us, this back-half of the year. Europe is the obvious one, but even in the league I think we could make inroads there. We’re not happy with where we are. It’s unacceptable that we’re in the position we are. But the circumstances have dictated that to a great extent. The circumstances will change. The guys who came back in today will improve and make us stronger. There’s still two or three more on the horizon who will also come back. I think that gives us an opportunity before long. It’s only one game, but I thought today was an important game if we were going to start that progress. Getting three points makes us think, OK, it’s starting to make an impact.
Spurs have been hit with a double-whammy over the past few months — a genuine injury crisis where as many as 12 players were unavailable due to injury, combined with a brutal match schedule in which Spurs played 2-3 matches/week for two months. Ironically, the media focus ahead of this match was on Manchester United, whose own injury crisis meant a bench entirely of teenagers for Rubin Amorim. Ange was asked about Amorim’s situation, and hilariously had a few pointed quips about United’s injury crisis compared to Tottenham’s.
“If I check my office, I don’t have any sympathy cards from other managers, so that hasn’t happened. There’s definitely a few. I could see Ruben there, players out of position, kids on the bench. Well, welcome to my world. But that’s for one game. Now do that for two months. Do that for two months. Any club. Do that for two months. I thought Man United were good today, considering all that, and we had our days when we were good, we beat Liverpool in this spell. Do that for two months.”
Spurs’ next match is a rare Saturday match against relegation threatened Ipswich Town this coming weekend, meaning a second consecutive week with only one fixtures.