You could almost hear the collective groan around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium the second time Dejan Kulusevski sat down on the pitch. Deki had been clattered by Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi a few minutes prior, landing on his back and getting up gingerly. Ange Postecoglu subbed him off after just 19 minutes and he walked gingerly down the tunnel to be seen by the Tottenham physios.
Not great, Bob! With James Maddison and Lucas Bergvall both out for the season, Deki is one of Tottenham’s sole remaining midfield playmakers. Losing him to injury and potentially having him miss the Europa League final newsagainst Manchester United would add a particularly cruel coda to what has been an awful season of poor results and incredibly unfortunate injury luck.
Thankfully, Ange Postecoglou says we hopefully don’t have anything to worry about. Asked about Kulusevski’s health at the post-match press release, Big Ange said the physios aren’t especially concerned, and that it was just a knock.
“[Deki] should be OK, just talking to him after. Medical team are not too concerned with him, more of a knock than anything else. So we’re hoping he should be OK.
Tottenham leaned on its depth significantly for this match, quite obviously resting players after the dramatic win last Thursday at Bodø/Glimt that sent them to the Europa final. Some fans questioned why players like Richarlison and Dominic Solanke didn’t play at all today, even as a substitute, but Postecoglou said he wasn’t willing to take a risk with them after playing on an artificial turf field in Norway.
“[Eight changes from Thursday] explains some of it but not all of it. I still felt we should have been better than we were today. So I can’t totally discount the performance today on the fact I’ve made a number of changes. We should have still been able to perform better than what we did.
“No, we weren’t going to [bring Solanke or Richarlison on]. The last time we played on an artificial with Tamworth, the game after we got two calf injuries out of it. Guys like Brennan, maybe Richy and Madders, so we were never going to risk those guys today.”
One of the more interesting tactical tweaks involved Wilson Odobert playing part of the 2nd half at the attacking midfield 10 position, something we’ve rarely seen this season. Postecoglou said this decision was because, again, he wasn’t going to risk playing some of the more natural players on the bench due to the (remote) possibility they might get injured.
“It was a needs must basis today, I put [Wilson] in there, he’s played there before because I didn’t want to expose any of the other guys from the other night so he had to play in there. But I think aside from all that, it’s still about performance. Guys had an opportunity today to put their name forward and put some pressure on the guys who played the other night. Fair to say there wasn’t any compelling evidence of that. That’s what I’m trying to push with these guys, that sometimes in football you’ve just got to take the opportunities there before you. They’re never going to be perfect. We made eight changes but there is an opportunity there and you’ve just got to take it when presented to you and I’m disappointed more didn’t step forward today.”
This match called attention to the wild extremes Tottenham have been experiencing. On the one hand in ten days they will play Manchester United for a European cup trophy and qualification for the Champions League. On the other hand, today’s loss is the team’s 20th, tying the record for Spurs’ most losses in a Premier League campaign. When asked, Ange again defended his players and the adversity they’ve had to navigate this season.
“Yeah, look and I get it and people are banging the drum about this record with defeats, but if people don’t see there is a correlation between the two, I am not going to sit here and, it’s not exactly Pythagoras’ theorem. It’s quite simple to understand we would have had much better results if we didn’t have to navigate this. So, either you understand or you don’t and beat us over the head, I get it.
“I am not happy with the way we performed today, so that’s what I look at. I think we could have performed better and irrespective of the result you can still lose a game of football and our performance level wasn’t anywhere near where it should be. That’s my responsibility to address.
“I just think we haven’t been able to cope with what’s been presented to us this year. A lot of that is because of the injury situation we had, particularly earlier in the year. It’s not just about getting players back, I’ve had to manage guys like Micky, Romero and Destiny. There is every possibility they could have played more than what they’ve played, but we’ve had to manage it and we haven’t been able to cope with it. We have got a lot of young players in the squad who we have exposed to a lot of football and fair to say a few of them are looking tired I think because we’re into our 60th or 61st game and because of the injury situation we had, we’ve paid a price for that in the league. So, that is the story as it’s been told.”