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Ange Postecoglou has urged Tottenham’s hierarchy to sign players with ‘experience’ in the summer transfer window.

Spurs head into Sunday’s final Premier League game of the season at home to Brighton on a high following their 1-0 win over Manchester United in the Europa League final on Wednesday night.

Postecoglou, who has ended Spurs’ 17-year wait for a trophy, admitted after the victory in Bilbao that he sacrificed the team’s Premier League campaign in order to focus on winning the Europa League.

Spurs have been hampered by multiple injuries to key players this season, forcing Postecoglou to heavily rely on 19-year-old duo Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall, who were both signed last summer with no Premier League experience.

Postecoglou, who suggested during Spurs’ trophy parade on Friday that he is staying for a third campaign, believes the club now need to add more seasoned players to his squad ahead of their return to the Champions League next term.

‘You learn from every season,’ Postecoglou said ahead of Spurs’ game against Brighton.

‘Looking back at our pre-season last year, I don’t think it was ideal and there were certain things we needed to do differently, and certainly design differently for the coming year, how we get our guys ready for the biggest challenge of Premier League and Champions League football, we know it’s a massive challenge.

‘I think our players will be better equipped. People forget, we signed Dom [Solanke] who has been unbelievable for us but then we signed three teenagers, they weren’t ready for what was ahead. They’ve been unbelievable, obviously Wilson [Odobert] has missed a lot of the season but Lucas and Archie [have been] unbelievable.

‘We signed three teenagers and the start of next year they’re not going to be teenagers, they’re more than ready so we’ll be in a better space straight away.

‘That’s the other lesson learned, I don’t think it would be my sort of direction, you need to now bring in some experience for this group in terms of our recruiting. So that changes, you learn some lessons from that as well.

‘I said all along, I have still felt there has been growth this year and we’ll be much better placed at the beginning of next year to tackle what’s ahead than we were at the start of this one.’

Postecoglou also said he was ‘overwhelmed’ by the thousands of supporters who attended Spurs’ trophy parade on Friday.

‘Come Monday, I won’t have a care in the world, but I assume I’ll have an indication at some point. Only because you know there’s some serious planning to do more than anything else, but I won’t have any problem switching off,’ Postecoglou said.

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‘I was overwhelmed by the sea of people and every demographic you can think of. There were grown men crying, women, girls and boys just so ecstatic.

‘When you see the sheer magnitude of the numbers, you realise it is a massive club.

‘I had a sense of that before I joined but I guess even for the club itself, it reaffirms that missing piece of success and what it can do to galvanise a supporter base and really show the size of the club.

‘It’s fair to say it is a massive club and the opportunity now is to make it bigger than ever.’

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Ruben Amorim admits he ‘doesn’t know what will happen’ with Alejandro Garnacho after the Manchester United winger publicly questioned his decision not to start him in the Europa League final against Tottenham.

Garnacho was named among the subs on Wednesday night with Mason Mount selected ahead of him in the starting XI. The Argentina international came off the bench with 20 minutes, immediately testing Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario.

The winger was unable to drag his side back into the game and vented his frustration over not starting the game post-match.

Speaking to the Argentine press, he said: ‘There were a lot of things missing – when you don’t score goals, you always need more at the end,’ Garnacho told the Argentine media after the game. ‘I played every round until we reached the final, I helped the team, and to play twenty minutes today… I don’t know.’

His brother, Roberto Garnacho, also blasted the United boss with a post on Instagram, accusing Amorim of ‘throwing him under the bus’.

United will end what has been a catastrophic season at home to Aston Villa on Sunday ahead of a pivotal summer.

Having already been strongly linked with a move away from Old Trafford this year, Garnacho’s future has been thrown into further doubt following his comments midweek.

In an already tumultuous week, Bruno Fernandes’ future at the club has also come under scrutiny. Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal are ready to offer up to £100m for the United captain and offer him a lucrative three-year contract worth £700,000-a-week and up to £65m per season once signing-on fees and bonuses are included.

With a huge summer ahead, Amorim insisted his focus is solely on Villa for the time being.

‘I always speak to my players, but the focus now is on the last game,’ Amorim said in his pre-match press conference on Friday when quizzed on Garnacho’s comments.

‘I don’t know what is going to happen. We have a plan and we prepared for both situations, with Champions League and without.

‘We have an idea what type of squad we want, but now we have to focus on the last game and we will have time address all of those situations.”

Asked whether the Europa League final had changed his opinion on some players, Amorim responded: ‘No, what changes is one less competition, that game in the middle of the week.

‘You can manage the squad in a different way, so that rotation of the players, the depth of the squad, that changes completely if you have three or four competitions.

‘That changes a little bit the plan, but not the way I look at my players just by looking at the final.’

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Ange Postecoglou has given the clearest indication yet that he is staying at Tottenham in his speech during the club’s Europa League trophy parade on Friday night.

Standing in front of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Postecoglou addressed the thousands of fans who had lined the streets to get a glimpse of the players travelling on an open-top bus with the Europa League trophy.

Postecoglou told Spurs supporters: ‘I told them, I told them and they laughed. I told them and they didn’t believe, but here we are.

‘And we’re here because of this unbelieveable group of people, players, staff, absolute heroes, lef by the legend Son Heung-min, Cuti Romero, James Maddison and Guillermo Vicario.

‘All of them are heroes and they did it all for you, because you deserve it, the club deserves it.

‘And I’ll tell you something, I’ll leave you with this… all the best television series, season three is better than season two.’

The Australian’s sign off was greeted with a huge cheer from both the supporters and the Spurs players stood beside him.

Postecoglou’s future was in major doubt before the Europa League final due to Spurs’ abysmal form in the Premier League.

Ahead of the final day of the Premier League season this Sunday, Spurs sit 17th in the table with 38 points from 37 games.

Only the three relegated Premier league sides – Southampton, Ipswich Town and Leicester City – have lost more games than Spurs this term.

But Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is now faced with a huge decision after Postecoglou delivered Spurs’ first trophy in 17 years after his side beat Manchester United 1-0 in the Europa League final on Wednesday evening.

Speaking after the game, Postecoglou admitted that he had sacrificed Spurs’ Premier League campaign from January in order to focus on winning the Europa League, a decision which he claimed was not widely backed by the club’s hierarchy.

‘I think when we got to the end of January – the end of the transfer window and assessed our situation – I made a decision there and then that this was the trophy we were going to go for,’ Postecoglou said.

‘It was at odds with what other people believed at the time we should do and that’s understandable but I really believed we could win this.

‘Everything we’ve done since then, everything we’ve done in training and the teams I’ve selected were making sure that when these games came around that we were in the best possible position to tackle them.

‘That has come at a cost for sure in the league and I have to take responsibility for that, but I just felt the end game of winning something was more important to me and it’s the only way that I was going to do it.’

Postecoglou also claimed after the Europa League final that he had not had a conversation with Levy about his future as Spurs’ manager.

‘No, no planned meetings,’ the 59-year-old said.

‘I haven’t had any discussions, no one has spoken to me about anything. Maybe they felt like they didn’t need to or they were waiting for this game.’

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Cristian Romero wants to leave Tottenham to join Atletico Madrid just days after their Europa League triumph over Manchester United.

Romero, 27, played a starring role in Bilbao on Wednesday night, leading the celebrations as Spurs ended their 17-year wait for a major trophy.

The Argentina international helped nullify United’s attack with Alejandro Garnacho later describing his countryman as ‘the best centre-half in the world.

Romero has been a hugely influential presence at the back since arriving from Atalanta for £42million four years ago.

Atletico Madrid are huge admirers of the centre-half with Romero recently informing Spurs chairman Daniel Levy that he wishes to join the Spanish giants, Marca report.

While negotiations were postponed until after the Europa League final, Atletico are now poised to make their move.

Atlético sporting director Carlos Bucero and Romero’s agent Ciro Palermo have already held talks with club president Miguel Angel Gil also ready to step in to get the deal over the line.

Atletico and Tottenham have done plenty of business in recent years with the La Liga side signing Kieran Trippier and Matt Doherty, also taking Sergio Reguilon on loan.

Romero’s price tag reportedly stands at €70million (£58m) with his current contract in north London set to expire next summer.

Winning the Europa League, which also secured Champions League football for Spurs nest season, has not changed Romero’s stance with the defender still eager to link up with Diego Simeone in the Spanish capital.

The move will also reunite him with some of his closest friends from the Argentina national team including Rodrigo de Paul, Nahuel Molina and Julian Alvarez, who also left the Premier League to join Atletico last summer.

Los Colchoneros had to dig deep to sign the forward from Manchester City, paying £82m to land him a year ago.

Speaking after Wednesday’s win over United, Romero strongly suggested his business with Spurs is done.

‘I gave everything for this shirt. I came here with the mentality of making history, I achieved it, and now it’s time to enjoy it,’ Romero said.

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Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy thanked Ange Postecoglou in a speech after the club’s Europa League victory and believes the trophy can put Spurs ‘on the road to the very top’.

Brennan Johnson’s first-half goal sealed a 1-0 victory against Manchester United in Wednesday’s Europa League final, marking an end to Spurs’ 17-year wait to win a trophy.

Despite the club’s success in the Europa League, which has secured a place in next season’s Champions League, Postecoglou’s future at Spurs remains in doubt due to the team’s woeful Premier League.

Ahead of the final day of the Premier League season on Sunday in which Tottenham host Brighton, Spurs sit 17th in the table with 38 points from 37 games.

But in a speech at Spurs’ Europa League party on Wednesday night, Levy suggested that the team’s success in Europe could now put them on the right path.

‘We’re champions!’ Levy exclaimed after taking the microphone.

Listen, this has been a very long time coming. 1984 was the last time we won a European cup, tonight we made history.

‘I want to thank Ange and all of the coaching staff, all of the players. You guys have gone down in history. Thank you very much.

‘This is a magnificent achievement for the club and hopefully is going to get us on the road where we absolutely deserve to be, which is at the very top. Thank you very much.’

Speaking in his post-match press conference, Postecoglou admitted he had not held talks with Levy over his future as Tottenham manager.

‘No, no planned meetings. I haven’t had any discussions, no one has spoken to me about anything,’ Postecoglou said.

‘Maybe they felt like they don’t need to or they were waiting for this game.

‘What I do know is, I’ll go back to my hotel room, get my family and friends together, open up a nice bottle of scotch, have a couple of quiet ones, get ready for a massive parade on Friday, play Brighton on Sunday. And then Monday I’ll go on holiday with my beautiful family because I deserve it. And que sera sera.’

Meanwhile, Gareth Bale believes Postecoglou still has a future at Spurs despite the team’s poor Premier League form this season.

‘I think only the chairman can decide, to be honest,’ Bale told TNT Sports.

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‘There’s been so much talk about whether he goes or whether he doesn’t.

‘I guess it’ll be interesting to see that because he’s won a trophy, the first Tottenham manager to do so in a long time. So I guess the board has some decisions to make.

‘I like the football that he plays. Obviously he lacks a bit of a plan B. But tonight showed there is a plan B. There’s a different side to how he’s played.

‘So I guess if he also matures as a manager and brings that defensive side to his teams, of course he can still have great success here.’

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Mikel Arteta has issued a response to Tottenham’s Europa League triumph – and if they had a better season than his Arsenal team.

Spurs defeated Manchester United 1-0 in the final on Wednesday to secure their first major trophy in 17 years and qualify for the Champions League.

Arsenal, meanwhile, ended their season without a trophy and haven’t registered any significant silverware since the FA Cup five years ago, despite Arteta previously trying to count their two Community Shield wins.

Spurs’ victory over United means they have now won a total of four major European titles – double the amount of their north London rivals Arsenal.

Quizzed about Spurs winning the Europa League trophy in his press conference on on Thursday, Arsenal manager Arteta said: ‘I congratulate them.

‘I think they are champions, and when you get to that, you have to do a lot of things right.

‘I think they have gone through a season with again a lot of obstacles and difficulties and they have helped them at the end to manage a beautiful moment.

‘So you have to congratulate. This is a sport and I am sure they have done everything in their hands to achieve it and they are very happy.’

Spurs have massively struggled in the Premier League this season with Ange Postecoglou’s side sitting 17th in the table with just one game left.

They are 15 places below second-placed Arsenal, who look set for their third successive runner-up finish in the Premier League.

Arteta appeared to aim a dig at Spurs ahead of the Europa League final – but after their rivals landed the trophy – he shared an incredibly coy response when asked which club had enjoyed a better season overall.

‘I don’t like to compare with other teams,’ Arteta added. ‘I need to analyse my team. That’s my job.’

Meanwhile, Arteta is already looking ahead to next season as well as the summer transfer window.

‘Obviously you have to rest [first], then you need to be very convinced and aligned of what you want to do to give yourself the best chance,’ he said.

‘Then you need to start to feel that feeling in your tummy that you are willing to come back here on day one, fully motivated, fully enthusiastic to go again with the group of players and staff that we have.

‘I am excited [for next season] but I think now I need as well to rest a little bit, to calm down and to start to make certain decisions in the most efficient way.’

On the summer transfer window, Arteta continued: ‘I think [new sporting director Andrea Berta] is going to be a big contributor. His experience, the fact that he has already won and won in a very difficult context as well, the way he has built teams I think is exceptional.

‘I think we have to share all that responsibility. Andrea is going to be a key part driving the idea and the plans that we have to try to execute them, and we are here to support him.’

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Manchester United and Tottenham are fighting to salvage their seasons when they meet in the Europa League final tonight.

For just the fifth time in history, two English sides meet in the final of a major European competition with Champions League qualification also on the line in Bilbao.

A showdown between the clubs sat 16th and 17th in the Premier League has been described as ‘shambolic’ – breaking records and setting a new bar in ineptitude back home.

United and Tottenham have lost 18 and 21 games respectively in the Premier League this season and for Ange Postecoglou, he faces an uncertain future whatever happens in the Basque Country tonight.

Ruben Amorim, who described his United side as ‘the worst in club history’ earlier this year, could find himself under similar pressure should his side wilt on the grandest stage.

Europe has offered respite and hope for both teams this season and now there is light at the end of the dark tunnel for one of them.

Metro’s LIVE blog will bring you all the match build-up from Bilbao, confirmed team news and starting XIs, latest goal updates and minute-by-minute coverage throughout the evening.

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Both Manchester United and Tottenham can salvage silverware in the Europa League final tonight.

Two English teams meet in a European final for the fifth time in Bilbao tonight, desperate to rescue something from desperately poor Premier League campaigns.

Lifting the trophy will also earn a crucial spot in next season’s Champions League.

Despite their poor league form, Ruben Amorim’s side have remained unbeaten throughout the entire Europa League campaign and eased past Athletic Bilbao in the semi-finals to reach the final.

The Red Devils could now lift the trophy for the second time after their triumph under Jose Mourinho back in 2017.

Tottenham, meanwhile, saw off the challenge of Norwegian underdogs Bodo/Glimt in the semis and could now win the club’s first trophy since the League Cup back in 2008.

Despite rotating their squad in recent matches to rest key players, both teams have several injury doubts ahead of Wednesday’s final in Bilbao.

United will be without Matthijs de Ligt despite the Dutchman making the trip to Spain but Leny Yoro is expected to play.

De Ligt has missed the last three games after picking up a fresh knock against Brentford at the start of May, while Yoro limped off during United’s defeat to West Ham two weekends ago.

Yoro trained on Tuesday along with Diogo Dalot, who is available again after missing six games with a calf injury.

There was another surprise return with Joshua Zirkzee back among the group. Yoro, Dalot and Zirkzee are all available tonight, although Amorim did suggest at a press conference on Tuesday their minutes will be limited.

Ayden Heaven’s cameo appearance against Chelsea – his first minutes since March – provided another boost for Amorim, although it’s unclear if fellow centre-back Jonny Evans will be able to be feature after his similarly lengthy lay-off.

Toby Collyer could be called upon after making his long-awaited return to United’s matchday squad against Chelsea.

Tottenham, meanwhile, find themselves short of options in central midfield after James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Lucas Bergvall were all ruled out of Wednesday’s final.

There were additional concerns for Pape Matar Sarr after he limped off during Friday’s defeat to Aston Villa, but Ange Postecoglou passed his midfielder fit when he spoke to the press yesterday.

Postecoglou rested several key players on Friday, but captain Heung-Min Son did play from the start, managing 74 minutes as he continued his comeback from a foot injury.

Predicted Tottenham XI to face Man Utd

Vicario, Porro, Romero, van de Ven, Udogie, Bentancur, Bissouma, Odobert, Johnson, Solanke, Son.

Predicted Man utd XI to face Tottenham

Onana, Mazraoui, Maguire, Shaw, Amad, Casemiro, Ugarte, Dorgu, Fernandes, Garnacho, Hojlund.

Where to watch Tottenham vs Man Utd? TV channel and kick-off time

The Europa League final between Tottenham and Manchester United will kick off at 8pm on Wednesday, 21 May 2025.

Viewers can tune into the action via TNT Sports 1, with coverage starting at 6pm.

The final will also be able to watch for free, with fans simply needing to create a discovery+ account to stream the game at no extra cost.

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Priorities. Got yours in order? Is each day for you a slick march through the to do list, striking tasks one by one, progress to your goals assured? Each week and month slotting cleanly into the broader scheme, one that means the five-year plan can’t fail.

No? If you’re idly reading this on Wednesday morning, I can’t imagine your life is so rigid. But then again if you are on the way to the Europa League final, perhaps the reading of every scrap concerned with Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is your priority, in which case congratulations, keep at it, you’re doing a fantastic job.

Personally, I find it near impossible to figure out how to prioritise anything in life. Except that if something must happen soon, then I seem to prioritise anything else that might possibly be around to do.

Even the dishwasher, or fixing the broken toilet roll thingy. In the end the decision is generally made for me by the cruel march of time. The deadline arrives, it must be done.

It’s irritating. But it is also true that for most of us it is hard to easily tell what should – or should not – be prioritised to make our lives complete.

Not so if you’re a football club. Their priority is to win. And like many with the resources, but more painfully, perhaps, than all, if you are Tottenham Hotspur, your aim, long established, long derided, is to win silverware.

Tonight Tottenham return to a major European final for the first time since 2019. Their aim is a first European trophy in 41 years (well, 40 years 363 days actually). It is hard to express what this trophy would mean to this club. But, everything.

Mauricio Pochettino is held in such high regard by Spurs supporters not just for that mad, beautiful Champions League run – in a season without signings – but for his decency and his commitment to treating the ambitions of Tottenham fans with respect.

I will always love Poch, and whenever I see him making flirty little comments about the fanbase and the club, my Spurs group chats light up. We miss him still.

But one area where he perhaps underestimated the fans’ desire was in the yearning for a cup. He prioritised the league over going deep in domestic cup competitions, and we were rewarded – but never got to kick out the trophy cabinet mothballs or earn a rebuttal to the jokes.

Ange Postecoglou understands this. Iron-clad self-belief can seem frightening up close, but his claim ‘I always win something in my second year’ is not just a (correct) boast, it is also a statement of intent and a source of pride and comfort to his squad: we will get there, it is ordained.

He cannot know what will come to pass in Bilbao tonight. But that established refrain means we ride on confidence rather than desperation. Yes, despite it all.

Clickbait chumps have demanded that the established bonus for winning the Europa League – a place in the Champions League – be stripped from either Tottenham or Manchester United because of their laughable positions in the Premier League table.

And for both sets of fans this year much domestic football has been a humiliating grind.

But Postecoglou has prioritised. I’m not trying to claim the league form is a deliberate trade, but he looked at what was available to him, identified the tasks ahead and had to choose. He chose right.

And because the Europa League winner does earn Champions League football, sorry Keysy, tonight makes an irrelevance of the league finish. The Premier League form is not even really a compromise, except to the suffering of my eyes.

Win tonight and no one can deny Spurs’ season is better than that of repeat league runners-up Arsenal.

And this is the difference between football as a job and football as a hobby. No one is rationing fans’ word count or energy resources. It’s perfectly fine to spend the whole season bemoaning Ange’s lack of nous and then gloat ad nauseam if the cup is ours. Because practical realities mean nothing. It’s like promising 0% immigration to the UK from Trump’s golden elevator, rather than running the country.

There is a plan, which this team and this manager have my utmost respect for making, whether or not it plays out tonight in Spurs’ favour.

See you in the Champions League next season, suckers.

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Ange Postecoglou has confirmed Lucas Bergvall will not feature in Tottenham’s Europa League final against Manchester United despite travelling with the squad to Bilbao.

The midfielder suffered an ankle ligament injury at the end of April, missing his side’s last three Premier League games and both semi-final legs against Bodo Glimt.

The 19-year-old, who has started 24 matches in all competitions this season, was ruled out for the rest of the season, but developments this week fuelled hope he could still have some role to play in the Basque Country this week.

The Swede was seen training with the team and travelled with the squad to Bilbao.

But despite hopes of a shock inclusion tomorrow night, Postecoglou has ruled him out of returning at San Mames.

‘Team news is pretty much the same as last week. Lucas [Bergvall] isn’t available so it’s pretty much the same as last week,’ Postecoglou said.

Spurs were dealt another injury worry when Pape Matar Sarr was forced off during last Friday’s Premier League defeat at Aston Villa.

The midfielder, among the few first-team regulars to start at Villa Park, was replaced after 53 minutes, heading straight down the tunnel after gingerly leaving the pitch.

Sarr however is ‘fine’ after that scare and is in contention to make the starting XI tomorrow night.,

Like his counterpart at Old Trafford, Postecoglou is under huge pressure heading into the final with both Spurs and United desperate to salvage silverware after dreadful domestic campaigns.

There have been suggestions the Australian could be sacked regardless of who lifts the trophy with the Spurs boss insisting his future is ‘irrelevant’ ahead of kick-off.

‘It doesn’t matter really. Because the reality is, the opportunity is the same for me and for the club,’ he said.

‘I’ve said before, whatever happens beyond tomorrow is kind of irrelevant when you think about the opportunity that exists right now, to provide something special for this club and the supporters and everyone who has worked so hard the last 16 years waiting for a trophy and the last 41 years waiting for a European trophy.

‘If I was worried about my tenure at this club, fair to say we wouldn’t be in this position because I would have got distracted long ago and I’m pretty good at making sure my focus is on giving this club the best opportunity to do something special.

‘Whatever happens after that I’m very comfortable that I’ll continue on trying to win trophies wherever I am.’

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