If it feels like you’ve seen Ange Postecoglou give a lot of press conferences lately, that’s because he has. And today was another one, the usual pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s Premier League match at Aston Villa. You know this match, it’s the one that the Premier League stepped in and rescheduled to give Tottenham Hotspur more preparation time before the Europa League final in Bilbao, which got Villa fans super salty.
But Villa getting pissy didn’t come up in today’s press conference. Instead, the focus was almost entirely on the BRAND NEW INJURY CRISIS Spurs are navigating ahead of the final. Yesterday, the club announced that Dejan Kulusevski had knee surgery after being injured from a Marc Guehi tackle in last weekend’s match against Crystal Palace. Deki joins Lucas Bergvall and James Maddison on the sidelines, leaving Spurs short-handed at central midfield.
There were rumors floating around the Tottenham Hotspur Cinematic Universe (i.e. social media) yesterday that Bergvall might be back in the frame to play in Bilbao after he was spotted on the grass without a boot, but when asked, Postecoglou was quick to quash those rumors. In short: Beef Ball won’t play.
“No, it is still the same sort of timeframe. He was never a long-term one but he has literally just got out of the boot and taken his first tentative steps on the grass but he won’t be available.”
(Why Beef Ball? Because of this Bluesky post. You’re welcome.)
Deki’s injury was equally unfortunate, and Ange was happy to go into a little more detail about what happened, and how long Kulusevski might be out of the team.
“Disappointing news. Initially we thought it wasn’t too serious. The medical team were worried structurally about how the knee was but it blew up the day after and we knew there was an issue there. He has had surgery and it will put him out for at least a few months. We will see. To be honest, I have only got basic information at the moment in terms of recovery but it will certainly put him out for a while.
“Yeah, gutted for him, gutted for Lucas and gutted for Madders and Radu, because, say all four of those, it’s not like - knock on wood because we’ve had enough of those - but it’s not like a muscle injury or anything. It’s just circumstance, stuff that probably happens in every football game, but it doesn’t have the damage that it did and unfortunately for them it came at the wrong time of the year.
So, yeah, gutted for Deki because like I said I thought there was real growth in him this year. We integrated him into a new position which I think he was really getting to grips with and really making an impact and I think he’s grown as a player this year, he captained his country and and then sort of got hit with a foot injury which set him back but then typical him he worked hard at rehab and was really important for us away at Bodo and started looking like he was getting back to himself, which would have been great for us, so for him to get another setback is is disappointing. But mentally he’s a very strong guy and I’m sure he’ll use this as a catalyst to come back stronger.
So how long will Deki be out? Ange refused to put a number on it, but he did put it in terms of “months” rather than weeks, and yeahhhhhhhh that’s not great, is it?
“No, it wouldn’t be anywhere near 12 months, but again me putting a timeframe on wouldn’t be right because he only had the surgery yesterday. We’ll get some more information and a lot of that just depends on how players progress, but it’s fair to say months, but how many months I wouldn’t speculate at the moment.
Ange is of course no stranger to player injuries this season — it’s been a constant refrain, and he seemed fine with once again pointing out how Tottenham hasn’t had the rub of the green with player health.
“Look, I guess because it’s been a constant with us during the year, we’ve kind of become almost accustomed to it. It would probably be a bigger issue if we had a smooth run all year and got hit with injuries now and deal with missing key players, but we’ve pretty much been without key players all season. There hasn’t been a time where we had a three or four week spell with our strongest line-up, so the boys are getting on with it. They’re disappointed for the people involved and Deki being the latest one because he had a fantastic first part of the year for us and was just working his way back into it. At the same time as I keep saying to the group all along, you can’t pick and choose when these opportunities come along. There could be other years where we don’t have these disruptions and injuries, but we don’t get to a final. The reality of it is now the opportunity is there and whatever happens between now and then, we’ve got to make sure we’re ready for it.”
That said, Ange did not commit to phoning in the Villa match, alluded to by reporters asking questions about “sporting integrity.” Ange will still play to win the match, and while there will obviously be rotation, don’t expect to see Spurs’ U21 squad at Villa Park on Friday.
“We are certainly going to go out there and try to win the game tomorrow and put out a team that hopefully gets the job done. I’m not sure about the integrity. There have been times this year when we have had to field weakened teams because of injury. Does that affect the integrity? People are thinking there is some sort of competitive balance that exists that doesn’t exist over the course of the season. I would be very surprised if people were questioning our integrity to try to win a game tomorrow.”
Tottenham kick off against Aston Villa tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. ET / 7:30 p.m. BST. The match will be televised on USA Network in the colonies, and Sky Sports in the UK.