Ange Postecoglou has been speaking to the media ahead of Tottenham Hotspur’s game at Bournemouth in the Premier League on Thursday evening.
The Australian held his press conference at Hotspur Way on Wednesday morning ahead of the team’s training session at the Enfield complex. He was asked about the latest injury news surrounding Cristian Romero, Archie Gray, Mikey Moore and Dominic Solanke and he delivered updates on all four.
The Spurs boss was also quizzed about the need to sign another striker in the coming transfer windows as well as the arrival of South Korean teenager Yang Min-hyeok and the form of his national and club captain Son Heung-min, as well as the latest with Djed Spence and when he might start his first game for the club.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou. Here’s every single word the Spurs head coach said during his press conference at Hotspur Way.
What’s the latest team news?
Everyone from the weekend got through OK, Archie [Gray] obviously got a knock but he’s recovered well. Dom’s due to train today, he’s still not 100 per cent but he’s definitely improved from the weekend, so we’ll see how he goes through training today. The other injured guys are inching closer but not available.
How’s your week been?
It’s a Thursday-Sunday cycle for us, pretty consistently. So routines are there: Monday’s a recovery day for the lads and yesterday trained with the guys who didn’t play most of the game and then an extended recovery for the others and a full session today. They’ve all recovered well. No issues from it and a big game tomorrow, we’re ready to go.
What are you expecting from Bournemouth?
Yeah, tough challenge and not just of late but last year. Obviously new manager coming in and they’re really aggressive with their football. Obviously they’ve beaten City and Arsenal at their place, so a good challenge. We had a tough game up there last year, we did well, and we had a tough game against them here. One of those sides where there’s a real consistency in performance and approach. So you know that you’re in for a battle, so I’m looking forward to it.
How can you improve?
We’re progressing in all aspects of our game. We’ve scored a lot of goals but even defensively we’re much more consistent this year than we were last year. The fact that we have got quite a few absences at the moment is something we’ve got to work through. We had a fairly similar scenario last year and fair to say we kind of ground our way through it and we’re doing that at the moment. There’s improvements in all aspects of the game but we’re showing progress in areas where we felt like we needed to this year.
Obviously we’ve had games where we’ve not been great in executing our football, those two games in particular against Palace and Ipswich we fell well below what we wanted to do. That’s an area we’ve tried to iron out. Apart from that, it’s progress in all areas.
How do you work on the team’s resilience to constantly come from behind in games? Or is it down to the players?
I think it is behaviour and behaviour is learned. You do that every day, the way you train and approach everything you do. A big part of our game is physical output and consistency in that. We have been consistent in that. The other resilience stuff, it is a learned behaviour I think. You test that out everyday, you push the limits of what you can do with training and the way you approach everything you do really. Hopefully that comes to the fore when you need it in games. Some of it is just learned in games.
Spurs have a great record against Bournemouth, is there more pressure as you are the favourites?
No, I don’t think so. I’m not really sure. Especially this year, not just for us but most teams apart from Liverpool, I don’t think any team goes into a game thinking they are somehow favourites because there has been inconsistency amongst results with all clubs. That is because of the evenness of the competition. What you have done historically is kind of irrelevant. What we know is that this year in the Premier League all games are pretty tightly contested and even if a team has had a previous poor performance they are just as likely to bounce back with a strong performance on the weekend.
This week is a bit different I guess because all clubs are playing three games within a week so that will test a few of the clubs who don’t do that regularly whereas we have been in that cycle for a while. We are expecting a tough game down there, they are a good side who rarely dip below a certain level of performance. It will be a good test for us.
Djed Spence has had a turnaround in his Tottenham career. Where is he at fitness wise and will he play in the near future?
I don’t know about a major turnaround. I think a major turn around is Djed playing regularly at this level, just because he has hung around doesn’t mean that is a major turn around. I still think a lot of that is Djed continuing to train hard and wait for his opportunity.
Fitness wise he is always in good condition. We train pretty hard. Could he start a game? I think he could. Could he start multiple games? Probably not because he hasn’t played for quite a while. He has been in and around the squad. Particularly between now and Christmas opportunities may come up for him, he almost got on at the weekend but the red card changed things a little bit. I think the key for Djed is he is still training well and his focus is there and just to be ready to take the opportunity when it comes.
You lost Dominic Solanke at the weekend and you’re waiting again for Richarlison to come back. Without being too harsh, it’s probably difficult for you to trust Richarlison will be able to stay fit for a prolonged period based on his time at Spurs so far, so do you need to look at bringing in another striker?
Yeah, there is no doubt because when you add Wilson to that, even Mikey, we had Dom out on weekend, you hope that alleviates. With Wilson it’s long-term, hopefully Mikey by the turn of year will be back as well, but he’s 17. With Richy it has been frustrating because I see the potential in him and to be fair when he’s been fit he’s always made an impact, for me anyway. I think back to the start of last year and when he came back into the team during the year he went on a scoring run.
Even the little games he’s played this year, he’s made an impact. So, you know, that’s what you kind of hold on to, but there’s no doubt we need some bolstering in that front third over the next couple of transfer windows. Dom coming in has been great, but again we can’t overload him either, because ultimately, you know, even if he stays fit and nothing happens, performance will invariably drop if his energy levels drop. So it’s something we’re aware of and need to plan for.
You mentioned Mikey Moore, he’s been out for a considerable amount of time here and it sounds like a considerable time yet, I presume it’s fair to say the virus really attacked his system?
Look, I come out here and I want to be as transparent as I can, but this is a 17-year-old boy. I don’t like talking about what they have and what they don’t have. It’s nothing serious, but you know, he’s 17. We’re going to take our time, and I don’t like this kind of constant, not from you by the way, but I’ve just heard other bits and pieces of people speculating, Come on. I mean, like, if it’s your 17-year-old son, you don’t want everyone to know what he has or hasn’t got. It’s nothing serious. It’s nothing long-term.
It’s just that he’s a young lad and he’s only 17, and he’s a big part of this football club, and we will protect him, and we’ll be guided by how he feels, how he recovers from, you know, an illness. Like I said, young people will recover at different rates. He’ll be back. He’s still here. he’s He’s part of what we’re doing, and he’ll be back in the next few weeks, but again he’s missed a lot of football. So whether we bring him back the first team or he needs to play [for the U21s], we’ve got to bear in mind that he’s 17.
Can we have an update on Cristian Romero, is he back training with the team?
He’s due to have his last session or last couple of sessions with the rehab guys, today and tomorrow. So we’re kind of hoping that back into training, potentially by Friday. At the very latest early next week, if everything goes well.
Just wanted to ask you about the FA Cup draw, getting Tamworth and how much you actually know about them?
It’s an exciting bit of the cup. I was watching it with my boys, and they asked me a million questions about Tamworth, and I had to do some quick Googling. Actually no, to be fair, I’d watched the previous round. I like watching the FA Cup games. So I saw how they’d got through, so I knew a little bit about them. II’s a beautiful part of the FA Cup. I’m sure they’re buzzing to have a Premier League team there.
It’s great for us because it’s a tie that will obviously have a little bit of interest around it and yeah one I look forward to.
On the FA Cup, I wanted to ask you about Josh Keeley’s goal, your thoughts on that, and also what he’s like to work with?
Josh, he worked with us last year and with Birchy and it’s important with the young guys and with the goalkeepers, to get them eventually some game time. I think the loan’s worked out really well. He’s gone there, he’s worked his way into the team and he’s doing really well. He’s goalkeeping well. I don’t know how excited I get about goalkeepers scoring headers, mate. It’s great and great for him, I’m sure, but it’s not kind of the attributes I’m looking for in a goalkeeper.
But the point is, he is doing well. You go into a loan club, especially as a goalkeeper, young goalkeeper, and you have to earn the trust of the manager to end up being the number one. The fact that he has and and he’s doing well it’s good. It’s what we want to see from our loan guys.
Between them Djed, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall have only played 116 mins in the Premier League, different people, positions etc but are those three ready to play at that level?
You’re missing a big bit there, mate. How much has Archie played? We’ve had midweek games, he’s started Carabao Cup, started every Europa game, so he’s played. Like he is part of this team. I think he is separate from Lucas but we’ve used Archie as an eight and I don’t know how many of the top sides are using 18-year-olds regularly. I think for where Archie is at, we’ve certainly utilised him in many different areas and he’s done fantastically well for us.
I think with Lucas and Djed are in a different position. With Lucas again, we need to make sure we allow him to develop without putting him in before we think he is ready, particularly for Premier League football. I think that’s where the Europa League has been good for us because it’s a different level of football in terms of the intensity and tempo. Lucas is working his way through that and has had a couple of cameos in the Premier League as well and like I said with Djed, it’s kind of a different scenario.
From us obviously, we can’t lose sight of the fact they are still 18 and if people can show me evidence of 18-year-olds playing regularly, apart from some exceptions, and there is a reason for that because you want to allow them to grow into it. I have used Archie every time we’ve needed him and he’ll definitely play significant game time for us this year, for sure.
You’ve got Yang Min-hyeok joining in January, another 18-year-old. Is the number of young players in squad a reason for patience?
It depends which way you look at it but like I’ve said before, I think it’s the way you build. If you are trying to build, what you want is young players because ultimately every team goes through it’s cycles and we don’t have many at the top end in terms of age wise. We have a few in that sweet spot of peak years as they call them and a lot who will grow into that over the next number of years. What you want is hopefully those 18-year-olds, not all of them but you want the majority of them to start growing with the team and breaking through, so there is a longer term view which has to be taken from a team and squad perspective.
We have gone heavy on the younger ages but that is a deliberate process because we’re at the start of a cycle. If you’re closer to where you want to be and two or three years into it, you’re less likely to because then you are denying them opportunities. What we’re hoping is, we’re bringing them in but they’ll still get opportunities at this point of where we’re at.
Again, the flip side of that is with Yang, 18-year-old coming from a totally different part of the world, different league and it’s a massive step then say Archie doing it from Championship to Premier League, so we have to be mindful of what impact we expect from someone like that.
Is Yang here yet?
No, he hasn’t arrived yet. He’ll have some time off. Their league finishes and I haven’t spoken to the guys lately but I know he is keen to get over here and we’ll get him over here. I remember with Celtic, we signed a couple of lads from Japan and Korea and middle to late December they joined us and it was good leading into January for those guys.
Sergio Reguilon was on bench on Sunday. Is he ready if required over the next month?
He is ready. He is training every day so part of the squad and we’re down in numbers, but there is also a reason why Reggy is in the last year of his contract with us. We’ll see how that all transpires but nothing wrong with his attitude. He is training every day and we literally have schoolboys on the bench, so we’re low down on numbers and he’ll probably be involved again tomorrow.
You’re down on numbers but rested Dejan Kulusevski on Sunday, took Dom out with illness. We’ve seen during your time you’ve protected players, I remember you taking Sonny off against Villa when 1-1. How hard is it to do that when external pressure will build if you don’t get results?
Yeah it’s not hard. You’ve always got to make decisions you think are right. I am never going to make decisions to alleviate or appease people’s opinions. Deki has been our best player this year and I want to protect him because there is no chance he can play all these games we’ve got. Like I say, even if they can play, performance will invariably drop because it is not sustainable. We have to pick and choose. I thought the weekend game, particularly with Pape and Madders and Biss in then, we’re missing Bentancur as well, whenever I was going to leave him out, it would leave a bit of a gap. And then losing Dom on the day didn’t help.
So, it’s something we’re going to have to do, particularly with the small numbers we have, between now and Christmas hopefully we’ll get Romero and Micky back but the rest of them probably won’t. So, middle to front third, Bentancur included in that as he won’t be available [domestically] for a while, so middle and front third, we’ll have to rotate the players a fair bit.
