Ange Postecoglou had plenty of questions to answer at his press conference on Thursday ahead of Tottenham's trip to Aston Villa on Friday night in the Premier League.
Spurs travel to Villa Park five days before the Europa League final where Postecoglou's side will face Manchester United on May 21 in Bilbao. That means the Australian must decide whether to use key players to keep them tuned up otherwise they will not have played a match in almost two weeks by the time the final comes around but that also brings with it the risk of injuries.
One player who will definitely miss the final in Spain is Dejan Kulusevski after the Swede required surgery to his right patella following an injury in the Premier League fixture against Crystal Palace on Sunday. Postecoglou provided further updates on the Swede and on the rest of the team's fitness.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou. Here's the full transcript from the press conference at Hotspur Way.
What's the latest Dejan Kulusevski update?
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.
Will he be fit for the start of next season?
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.
More bad luck?
It’s just reflective and consistent with everything else that has happened this season. I have said a few times that we just haven’t had a smooth run of things. Every time we look like getting to a place where we look in decent shape, squad wise or personnel wise, invariably we have been hit. The last few weeks, again, it’s just circumstance that it has happened in the one area of the park.
Any chance Lucas Bergvall has made a miracle recovery?
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.
Is the integrity of the Premier League a consideration tomorrow night because of the battle for top five?
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.
Villa are guaranteed a place in Europe but have plenty to play for, you said after Palace you were not happy with the performance of your players - what do you want to see from them tomorrow?
Look, we understand the challenging situation we’re in and particularly the players. When you’re making seven or eight changes in a team line-up, throwing players together, it is very difficult for them but even in that context I thought the group could have performed better on the day collectively and individually. That is the challenge for the players, to try to seize the opportunity that is before them. There is a game tomorrow where we obviously want to try to perform well and pick up a result, but also it’s an opportunity for them to put their name forward for the big game the following week. As we’ve already seen in the past couple of weeks, as much as you would like to think there is an ideal starting line-up, things happen and players need to be ready for that. Tomorrow night is an opportunity for those guys to put their hand up.
How has this latest injury affected morale in the squad as it's happened plenty of times this season?
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.
In terms of Son, can he start tomorrow?
“He'll definitely play tomorrow. Whether we start him or not, we’ll have a look at, but he reacted well to playing the other day. There were no issues with his foot, he’s trained well and it makes sense for him to get more match-minutes. It could be as a starter and if not, he’ll definitely play at least half a game tomorrow.
Just away from the club momentarily, I wondered what you made of Josh Keeley and Jamie Donley getting through the play-off final last night?
Yeah, I watched the game last night, it was a cracking game and super pleased for both of them. You know, when players go on loan, obviously the key for it is for them to get match minutes and development, I think both of those guys have, but it's even better if they're part of something that could be special for them in terms of success.
I think that helps as well in terms of their own self-belief and and being part of something successful. So yeah, super pleased with them, it'll be a great occasion and hopefully they get through.
Can you see them both having a long term future with Spurs?
I think with all these things, they're for the off-season when guys come back. Right now our focus is fairly on what's happening in the next two weeks.
We haven't seen Timo Werner for a while, it was February when he was last in a squad....
He's injured, mate. He's injured. He's got a hamstring injury.
In terms of Dejan, how gutted are you for him, especially given the journey he's had this season and how key he's been as well?
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.
If you type in that surgery online, which is never a good thing, and it comes up at six to 12 months, I presume you don't expect it to be as long as that?
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.
You used three players that started in Bodo against Palace, will you use the other seven outfield players or will there be one or two you try to protect?
Yeah, we'll see, we'll see, we've got training today and it's a bit of a balancing act. We obviously tried to navigate that last week by protecting a few, which we had to, and it still didn't work out. We still lost a player, so I'll sort of take all that into consideration over the next few hours.
