Guglielmo Vicario has been speaking to the media ahead of Tottenham's big Europa League round of 16 second leg clash with AZ Alkmaar and we've got every single word the Spurs goalkeeper said.
On Thursday night at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the Lilywhites must turn around a one-goal deficit after a dismal display in the Netherlands and the north London club's season hinges on whether they progress in the Europa League as the Premier League table does not look healthy with them in 13th place.
Vicario had plenty to say ahead of the big match on a wide range of topics, including the future of head coach Ange Postecoglou.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to the Italian and here's a full transcript from the press conference at Hotspur Way.
Tomorrow is win or bust. How do you as players deal with the extra pressure?
We know exactly what the game means tomorrow night, we are very conscious of it, and we just want to win the game. In terms of pressure, every Sunday and Thursday for six months we are dealing with that. It’s about getting in the best mindset to face AZ. It will be a big clash and we are very ready to play this game.
Will you treat it like a cup final?
We will treat it like a big game of football. Because we know especially in this competition when two legs to face, the game splits in two halves. Maybe we lost the first half in the Netherlands and now have big opportunity to overturn the result in our favour tomorrow.
Are you playing for the manager's future too?
The pressure is on us because we play the game so I think we have to deal with that. But we are used to dealing with pressure day by day because we play every three days. We know the importance of the game tomorrow, for everyone at this football club, for us players, for the fans especially. But I think with all the support we will have tomorrow in the stadium, it will be an exciting night. We are really looking forward to playing tomorrow.
How much do you appeal to the fans to get behind you tomorrow and stick with the team?
They will deliver and then it’s on us what we can show tomorrow. We know exactly what we're going to face. We will face a good side. They showed this at their place. The best version of Spurs for tomorrow night is togetherness from us on the pitch and the fans in the stands. With this mindset and mentality we can go through this round.
You, Son, Madders and Romero are the leaders says Ange Postecoglou – is there an extra responsibility on you?
Every day we have responsibility on this group. We try to do our best and try to give the good advice to the youngsters, but it’s about the collective responsibility. Tomorrow, of course, we know the importance of the game is massive and we’re going to do this test altogether as a family.
It’s so important and everyone has to focus on their game, it’s so important, and then as a collective we go through every situation during the game and try to win this game.
What does that responsibility look like?
More than talking, the thing that I am most effective at is how you behave, how you show your behaviour to the youngsters. Maybe they are coming into a new team so I think the responsibility is in action, not just in talking.
Sometimes you need to talk about something. But I think we have the manager that every day is giving us the good words to explain which is the right way to play football, the right way to behave for this football club.
I think the most important thing is how you act, how you behave into the dressing room and what you show on the pitch. Also maybe the normal stuff we do in the gym, and try to be very professional and committed to this football club.
I watched the documentary about your recovery, what did you learn about yourself during that time?
It’s been a very different perspective of my life that I’ve never faced before, a massive injury like I had. I had to see things in a different perspective, of course, and try to stay strong, especially mentally. It’s been a different challenge, a different chapter of my life but I can say I’ve leant a lot in terms of how I had to deal with this kind of stuff … it helped me a lot. Very proud now to be back. It’s part of the past but it has been a good process especially for my mind.
While you were out the club signed Antonin Kinsky and Brandon Austin made his debut, what have you made of them and the competition for the future?
Competition is just about football, every day in trying to push your limits. It’s an important thing. To challenge also yourself and to try to not sit down and say OK I’m safe. It’s trying to reach your best, which is what we did and also if you want to play high-level football, competition is needed in every position, at every club in the world. It’s very important. These guys when they played, they played very well. They try to help the team in a proper way. Very Happy for them and that’s it.
You said the other day that for this game, as opposed to the first-leg, you were ready to show the real Spurs. What does that mean?
Tomorrow the real Spurs will be judged just about winning. Of course if we don’t win we are out of the competition. We know that will be tough so we have to embrace this. We know this. The good Spurs tomorrow will be just the winning Spurs. To win, we will need our best performance in terms of how we approach the game, how we are tuned into the game. And then of course we have to show our best qualities in terms of playing the football and put pressure on them. Because we put pressure on them. Of course because we play at our place and we know we have to do that.
You said the manager plays the right way. Are you 100% behind him?
Yes. I can say that his approach has been very very committed since day one when he joined here. He delivered to us the same way to play the game because he truly believes in this. We can be successful in this way and we are fully behind him, fully trying to do the right things that he believes are working for us. We are very, very committed to doing that and we have proved that. When we are at 100 per cent here in the brain and very, very committed to that I think we proved and showed what we can do.
How have you coped with injuries in defence and playing behind so many different defenders?
I think injuries are part of football. You have to deal with that. In this team whichever players he tries to put the right work, the right mentality in the way we play. It doesn’t matter because all the lads are very committed, they try to do things at 100 per cent so yeah, of course we don’t want to lose players for injuries but it’s life, setbacks and football. Whichever players, I’m happy to play with.
Is it a case of there being no more excuses now?
Around this football club we spoke very, very, very few times about injuries. We didn’t make excuses but the fact is we’ve been through three very, very tough months. Also the manager never complained about that. The players talked and we say this among each other, that we never thought about injuries, crisis, injury problems. We try to do our best but playing every three days you can sometimes lose something, points or games of football, and it’s about how you deal with these setbacks and I think we try to deal with them in the best ways possible. Of course we now have a lot of lads coming back and we know our responsibility especially the senior players, what they can bring into the game and tomorrow is another opportunity to show it.
Can you still end the club's long wait for a trophy?
Of course we’ll try and we have a big opportunity in the Europa League. Of course we’ll start from tomorrow, try to get through the game, it will be a tough one we know. Then we’ll see. Of course we try to win every game of football and then we see at the end of the season what we can achieve.
How do you stop the mistakes with low confidence like we saw on Sunday?
On Sunday we faced a team that was very, very committed in pressure. It’s the best team in pressuring the opposition behind us. It’s been a very good challenge for us. You can make some mistakes like we did but the result says 2-2. It’s a draw. It’s not what we expected from that game but also going 2-0 down after 66 minutes and then going back to 2-2 showed the belief this football club has about ourselves, the players and the manager and the mentality we want to go through. I can say mistakes are part of football, maybe we put some in the game on Sunday, but in the end we showed we have this belief for this shirt that we wear. It’s important for me a way to start again for the game tomorrow.
Spurs' season-defining game and the big Archie Gray question - click here to listen to the latest episode of Gold & Guest Talk Tottenham.
