Ange Postecoglou has spoken to the media to preview Sunday afternoon's Premier League clash at home to Aston Villa. It is a massive game for the sides as they battle in the race for European qualification.
The potential for the gap to open as wide as eight points would be a nightmare for the north London club. Another season without Champions League football entering the third year of Ange Postecoglou's tenure would be far from ideal.
The Spurs boss was pressed for the latest on the injury news front after Micky Van de Ven suffered an issue in the Carabao Cup game against Manchester City. He was also asked about whether Son Heung-min would be ready for the weekend.
Here is every word Postecoglou had to say in his pre-match press conference at Hotspur Way:
Team news?
The boys worked hard the other night. The main one is Micky and he has sort of strained a hamstring. It is not too serious but probably after the international break for him.
The other ones who were a bit sore were Romero and Werner but at the moment there is still a chance for the weekend. Sonny has trained today so if he gets through training tomorrow, he should be okay.
Van de Ven’s injury does not sound as serious as last season’s hamstring strain?
He was disappointed obviously. He was really looking forward to the game so he was a bit emotional. It is definitely not, knock-on-wood, a bad one like last time which kept him out for quite a while. He will work hard and the good thing is there is an international break in there which is an extra two weeks for us. So hopefully it means he doesn’t miss too much football.
Reaction to drawing Man Utd in Carabao Cup quarter-final and Ruben Amorim appointment?
Yeah good draw in terms of it is a home game which I think for all clubs is welcome because you not it is not going to be any easy game whoever you are playing so having it at home for us is great for us.
Against a big club like United [it] will be a really good fixture but you expect that at any quarter-final, semi-final stage of any competition. I only just heard Ruben has been appointed so he will have his feet firmly under the desk by then. Looking forward to meeting him.
There will be highs and lows as the squad evolves and fans need to understand that?
I keep saying this, fans are fans. There isn't a fan around the world who doesn't want their team to always be playing well. What we have to do, before the game and after the game is stay really focused on continuing to evolve into the team we want to be.
At the moment, in the league, we have had some disappointing results but really only one disappointing performance and that was the Palace game. It wasn't a great performance, and we got what we deserved.
We have to focus on that we continue to evolve, and learn from that, when we have had disappointments, we bounce back straight away which I think is important it is part of the evolution of the team. It is not going to be a smooth ride but within that, we don't want there to be too many times when we are not playing the football we want to.
That is the benchmark for us, that is our measure, and Palace fell well short of that. Wednesday night was a lot better.
Eight wins out of 10, do you deserve more credit?
You get what you deserve so I probably deserve whatever I am getting. I think it is fair enough depending on your outlook. Whether it is deserved or not, I try to make the point that criticism and scrutiny is healthy because it allows you to reflect on your beliefs and your convictions. Because if you are going to flinch at the first time people are critical or want you to change your path then it probably means you are not definite about what you are doing.
It's not something I think 'ah we are copping too much criticism' or unwanted criticism. In fact, if it is unwanted even more that we shouldn't react to it. It is up to us how we behave in that environment because I don't think that ever changes. Even if we went on another fantastic run, at the first sign of us maybe faltering the same sort of questions would come because it is kind of where we are at as a club at the moment.
Until we have success then I think that is always going to be the first thing people come at us about as a club and you have got to accept that. It is part of our journey and part of us becoming stronger. And like I said, having real conviction in what we do.
I have said it to the players, if you want to grow a beautiful garden you have to handle some fertilizer. That is the only way it will happen.
How important of an appointment was Unai Emery?
Yeah, great appointment. But it shouldn't surprise anyone, he was an outstanding manager before he got there.
He's done an outstanding job and another cautionary tale about writing people off because when he was at Arsenal, people were quick to be dismissive of him. Lots of other people's memories have faded.
When you're a manager and you see a manager going through what he did, it's firmly imprinted in your mind; just goes to show, as I said, he was an outstanding manager and for Villa, they identified somebody that could come in and really bring their football club to the levels they wanted to, and he's done that. Since he's been there they continue to get stronger and challenge and it'll be a good test for us.
Our games against them have been really good. Last year, we won at their place and played really well but I thought we played well at our place too but they got on top of us, they got ahead of us for the Champions League last year. It's great competition for us.
It's Unai Emery's birthday, are you hoping to stop the celebrations?
Miserable day for him I hope. Yeah, I guess, I'm the oldest in the comp mate, so I'm not going to mention birthdays.
The other night, you weren't 'Spursy', previous Spurs side might have lost, you didn't, what has changed?
Yeah, I don't know about that. I still think that's something, what I've said before, people will always kind of, every time we have stumble people are going to throw at us. You have to accept that, whether you believe that you're not that any more, you have to accept that you can prove otherwise.
I think the other night was a really strong performance against a pretty formidable side where we had to show every aspect of our game. We had to defend well, which I thought we really did because they didn't really create too many clear-cut opportunities against us which against City that's your best possible case of keeping them out – because it's the volume of chances that kind of erodes your ability to keep them out.
I think we had quality the other way, we created the best chances of the game, had a little bit of everything. It was an unbelievable physical effort from the lads. Even the physical numbers we did after, the amount of running the boys had to do.
That's just, I think, what you have to do against a team like City if you want to be successful. So, there's a lot of positives for us but again, I said this after the game, we're still the same team that performed poorly against Crystal Palace.
Nothing changed in those three days apart from us addressing some aspects of our football to stay true to that. If we don't veer from that, we'll get to where we want to.
How do you address going forward then Spurs' inconsistency?
Like I said, being strong in the way we want to play our football and we have been apart from that Palace game. Like I said, we didn't really address the challenge in front of us in the way we should, every other game I think we've done that. Yes, we lost at Newcastle but I thought we played well that day.
We lost at Brighton, pretty evident a poor second half cost us there. But the Palace game was one where we needed to do things close to what we do, so that’s all we can do, focus on things that are important to us.
You and Villa on same trajectory, they finished fourth last season, which some people see as a trophy, I know you don't but some do?
Well, but there isn't a trophy.
There isn't. Arsene Werner is to blame for that. You are now three wins away from a trophy in the League Cup. Do you want silverware rather than top-four, would you prefer that?
No, no. I want it all. I want it all, mate. I want everything. And it sets me up for people to maybe ridicule me at the end of the year because I said I want it all and I fall short of that, but I'll take the biggest one [check] I can and see what comes out of it. We'll go for everything.
Any more information on Odobert or a timeline?
No, no real time but it's significant, so he'll be out. Again, because it's a reoccurrence we'll have to be a bit conservative. I'd say a similar timeframe to his last one, maybe a bit longer, but it's one of those where you don't want to put a timeframe on it because it will really depend how quickly he heals from it.
Dragusin has been here nearly a year. What have you been impressed by and where can he improve?
Radu's been with us 10 months now and I think he's been great. We signed him because we saw some really strong attributes in him in terms of his defending capabilities, his mindset and again a really unique journey that he had to fight hard to get where he wants to. So, he had all those things I look for.
He is still young and he is working hard every day on his game and all aspects of his game. Defenders you know they tend to get better with age with experience, the good ones, and with him, guys like Micky and Destiny, the reason we signed them at the age they did is we really believe in years to come they'll get stronger and he is doing that.
Every time he is out there I think I can see improvements. He is really embracing the way we play. It is very different to where he came from, playing so aggressively with our line and defending one-on-one but he's embracing that and enjoying that.
I thought he was great the other night. Not just in his football but in terms of his presence and demeanour, he took some leadership there. Obviously, we lost two of our back four during the game with Micky going down and then Cuti (Cristian Romero) out. He had Archie next to him who is 18 and I thought he really stood up in that time just to make sure with those disruptions, we maintained our organisation and I thought he was really good.
This game last season we saw Kulusevski as number 10/8 role, was it a good reference point for this season when you put him there this season?
Yeah some of it. It was a little bit of discovery you know of just trying things. He always looked like he had the attributes to play inside but unless you do that, you're not sure. As I said, I think as much as I wanted to play him out on the wing, the way we play I don't think it suited his personality more than anything else because Deki loves to be involved in the game. His running capacity is ridiculous and he wants to be involved all the time.
When you play wing in our set-up, there are a lot of times where the discipline of it is not being involved. I think he struggled with that as much as he was trying to and it's through discovery he's ended up in the area where he is most suited in our football and he is growing enormous and improving all the time.
He was disappointed with his performance at Palace as well and again that is part of the journey of him understanding why things didn't click at Palace and he was back to his best on Wednesday night. When you have that running capacity and the quality he has, it's a hell of a weapon and it's one we can certainly benefit from.
Special atmosphere on Wednesday and feels like home is turning into a fortress. How happy with home form?
It's been strong and it has to be. The supporters play a big part in that. I thought they were brilliant on Wednesday night and that's part of it because if they can generate that energy in the stadium, the players certainly feed off it and it makes oppositions uncomfortable.
Particularly with the way we play because we want to be at the opposition all the time and if the crowd is up all the time, it gives the opposition the sense they can never get composed or recover. It's a big part of it and hopefully, we continue to grow.
Of course, we need to give our supporters a reason to make that atmosphere but when it goes hand in hand like it did on Wednesday night it's a great place to be and certainly can help us in terms of becoming the football team we want to.
