Ange on Tottenham's injury issues, fallout from Chelsea defeat and the challenge of Wolves (Full Presser)
Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglu on Spurs injury issues, fallout from Chelsea defeat and the challenge of Wolves
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00:00 Firstly, many congratulations to you and your staff, third Premier League Manager of the
00:04 Month award. I have to start on quite a week in terms of injuries and suspensions. Can
00:11 I get specific analysis if possible on Micky van der Ven and James Madison, there's latest
00:16 reports that his ankle injury is quite a bit worse than first feared.
00:19 Yeah, you don't get a lot of time to enjoy the moment do we? I'm glad you put it in there
00:26 but let's just get on to the real stuff. No, that's all good. Yeah, look, obviously, fair
00:31 to say there was a fair bit sort of happening after Monday night. So yeah, if I can go through
00:37 them, Micky obviously with a hamstring injury, which we kind of knew was fairly significant.
00:42 So yeah, probably a couple of months for him looking into the new year.
00:50 Matt is a lot worse than we thought. Obviously, again, he came off with the ankle injury,
00:56 but next day wasn't great. So we sent him off for a scan. So again, not great for him.
01:02 So again, probably into the new year for him. Richie had the operation, which again, we're
01:10 kind of scheduled anyway, because Richie's kind of been battling with it from day one
01:13 and with the international break coming up, we thought it was a good time to sort of get
01:17 it done. He should only be, if everything goes well, a month, so not too long after
01:22 the international break. They're the main ones. Obviously, we've got a couple of suspensions
01:27 as well. And I think Ben Davis is back and available. I don't think everyone else. Okay.
01:37 Pedro's fine. No, he's trained. No problem. That's obviously really bad news for Micky
01:43 and James. January's looming then. And I know we've spoken before about it's a smallish
01:50 squad and potentially with Davidson moving on to Galatasaray might have been a bit short.
01:54 Will there be discussions then to try and do some activity early in the January window
01:58 because of these injuries? Look, nothing really. My focus right now is we've still got a fair
02:04 few games between now and January, and that's where my attention's got to be. The planning
02:07 in terms of January has been in the works for a while. As I said last week, Johan's
02:13 in the building now. That's his area. He's getting his department together. He'll get
02:17 all the information. And we just got to keep working to the plan we started with. I've
02:23 said right at the start, we've only had one window trying to build a team. It was never
02:27 going to happen in that one window. So we've got a plan. Whether that's January, whether
02:31 that's the summer or beyond, and we'll work through that. But right now, what's important
02:37 to me is we've got a significant amount of games between now and January, and we want
02:43 to make sure we're performing at a good level.
02:46 Quite a memorable game, Monday. All the 30-odd years I've been to White Hart Lane, Tottenham
02:52 Hotspur Stadium, I've never seen a full house when you've just lost at home to one of your
02:56 big rivals. That says a lot. Is that a message to the players that are going to have greater
03:01 responsibility now coming in? Everyone's got to pull it together, and it's kind of an example
03:05 of what you've actually been saying for the last few weeks. There's going to be some downs
03:08 here as well as the ups.
03:10 Yeah, look, it was an unusual night, Monday night, but I think from our perspective, as
03:17 I said, after the game, it was hard to analyse, but we still had to analyse the game. And
03:24 our analysis was when it was the first 20 minutes, I thought we were outstanding, probably
03:27 the best we've played all year. Obviously, there was a couple of moments in there then
03:33 we lost our discipline, which kind of turned the game on its head in terms of just, there
03:38 was so much happening and so much not happening in terms of just playing football, it disrupted
03:45 us. And then we went down to 10 men, and again, I thought we coped not too bad. Obviously,
03:49 down to nine men. I think the message in the end was that, as you said, the supporters
03:55 appreciated the efforts of the players, which is important. I think that the players felt
03:59 that because ultimately, I think that's what every supporter wants, that they see their
04:03 players out there, the people representing their football club giving their all, but
04:07 disappointed with the outcome because it was a game that, like I said, we started really
04:11 well and was well within our grasp to come out on top. So yeah, there's lessons in that
04:17 as well. But it's just another opportunity for us to grow as a group, as a football club,
04:25 as a team.
04:27 Hi, Ang. Just one on Micky. How has he been emotionally and mentally since Monday? Because
04:33 he's had such a great start to life at Tottenham, and knowing that he's sustained that injury
04:37 and will be out for the next couple of months, how has he taken it?
04:40 Yeah, like I guess like all of them, any footballer, that's probably their biggest fear is that
04:46 it's always the possibility of injury sort of disrupting their careers. He was obviously
04:56 disappointed, but now it's about rehab and making sure that he uses this time to get
05:02 strong and come back better than ever. He's got good support in the building in terms
05:07 of the medical team, sports science staff. Knowing Micky and already the time I've spent
05:15 with him, he'll leave no stone unturned to make sure he comes back bigger and better.
05:19 How much of a loss will he be for yourself in the way that you want to play, given the
05:23 attributes that he does have?
05:25 Yeah, look, it's... look, they're all... all the absences kind of have an effect on
05:32 the team. I guess the unusual one for us, and again, not many times in my career, if
05:38 any, where we have such a disruption for one game. We've lost sort of almost four or five
05:43 starters in one game. That's where, I mean, three of our back four. So that's where we
05:51 kind of get affected more than anything else. I think if it was just Micky and obviously
05:57 you'd miss him because of the qualities he has, as you said, it wouldn't disrupt us as
06:01 much. But we've got to bring in three different players in the back four and that's the big
06:05 challenge for us.
06:06 You mentioned all the absentees for tomorrow's game. I mean, there was a lot of talk after
06:10 the game on Monday about the way that you want to play, even when you're down to nine
06:14 men. Given Wolves' front line, Huang, Inform, Kunya as well, is there a temptation on your
06:22 part to change the way that you play just for this one game?
06:25 Yeah, there's always a temptation. But apart from... apart from chocolate, I'm pretty good
06:33 at not giving in to temptations.
06:36 What's the message been then to the players? Like, is it... have you said, you know, there's
06:41 an opportunity for people to come in and prove themselves?
06:44 Yeah, look, again, I'm not one that kind of just reacts off sort of the short-term stuff.
06:51 Ultimately, we've tried to keep it as a normal week. You know, like I said, it is an extreme
06:56 situation when you have so much sort of fallout from one game. But ultimately, it's about
07:04 sort of preparing a team for this week. You can't sort of look too far beyond that because,
07:09 as I've already seen, every game in the Premier League is a challenge, you know, and Wolves
07:13 is going to be a hell of a challenge for us. So, you know, I think I don't want to sort
07:18 of, you know, veer away from kind of what our focus has been all along, is that is,
07:23 you know, every week we try and prepare and be ready for the next challenge. And, you
07:29 know, even though it's unusual circumstances, that's what we've tried to do this week.
07:32 Do you sense then that the players do want to rally around and kind of lift themselves
07:36 to this? Because it is a big disappointment losing key players, isn't it?
07:39 Yeah, it is. Of course it is. But, you know, I don't think it would take that for them
07:43 to rally around. They do it every day. I mean, that's, you know, ultimately that's what you
07:46 want. You want them every day sort of wanting to give their all, give their best. They don't
07:52 need extra motivation. So, you know, we're aware that obviously we're going to have to
07:59 make some changes for tomorrow. But, you know, the guys who will come in have been training
08:04 to understand how we want to play and will come in and give everything they can to try
08:10 and make us successful. I mean, the tricky part for us, and I know people have kind of
08:14 said it's an advantage that we haven't been in Europe or in the Cups, but if we had been
08:18 some of these guys would have had game time. That's the tricky bit. A lot of them are going
08:21 to come in and haven't had a lot of game time. And that's where, you know, from our perspective,
08:26 because again, we can't afford any more injuries. We've just got to be really careful about
08:30 sort of, you know, the kind of game time we give people.
08:33 And just looking back at Chelsea, have you been able to watch it, re-watching it, does
08:37 it make any more sense or is it one of those games you look at and like, this is just kind
08:41 of...
08:42 Yeah, no, it does. Like I said, I mean, you kind of, when you take the emotion out of
08:46 it, and I looked at it, like I said, the first 20 minutes I thought were outstanding. I thought
08:50 some of our football and, you know, we really started on their tempo. And then, like I said,
08:56 there was a six or seven minute spell where we just lost our sort of composure and, you
09:01 know, we kind of paid a price for that.
09:04 And the rest of the game, it was difficult because, you know, as I said, after the game
09:10 it seemed to be a lot of sort of outside intervention, which didn't really make it sort of a game
09:17 where you sit back and analyse and you go, okay, we could have done this, could have
09:20 done that differently. It was just a lot of, like I said, a lot of, I thought, unnecessary
09:26 disruption in a game that, you know, in the end you just really, all you're doing is having
09:30 two teams fight for a result rather than anything more than that.
09:34 Hi, Henge. Apologies in advance for asking a VAR question, but it's a slightly different
09:40 one. It's more to do with injuries. I was just wondering, is there, I'm not saying injuries
09:44 that you've currently got are because of that, but is there a chance that the amount of stoppages
09:48 in play now, the amount of time that players are waiting around, could it lead to more
09:51 muscle injuries and things like that?
09:53 Absolutely. I mean, I'm not going to draw a sort of direct correlation to Mickey's injury,
10:01 but, you know, I was half tempted to throw some balls out there for him to have a kick
10:05 around. I mean, it's the reason we have warm-ups, but if you're going at a game and then you
10:09 can, like, the fact that there was only 47 minutes of game time the other night in, what,
10:14 100 and whatever it was, 10, I mean, that's not ideal for the kind of athletes we have
10:19 out there, so it is a concern.
10:21 I was going to ask about Gio Varno-La Celso as well. Back on the summer tour, I remember
10:25 you kind of really praising him and talking about how you wanted to keep him here. Is
10:28 it for moments like now when Gio can kind of come to the fore?
10:32 Look, it's not just Gio, it's Brian Gill, it's, you know, we've got to be careful with
10:38 Ben to Cor a bit, but, you know, it's for him, it's for Skippy, it's for Eric Dyer,
10:44 it's for all these guys, you know. That's why they've been training hard, you know.
10:47 They've been training with us, they haven't been training separate from the group. Everything
10:51 we've done, we've done together and they've worked hard and for all of them, it's about
10:55 being prepared for when your opportunity comes and, you know, fair to say that the opportunity
11:01 comes now for a few of them and, you know, it's up to them now to take that opportunity,
11:06 but they've been preparing themselves for that, you know, from the first day.
11:10 Often when you have so many players out at a club, it kind of makes you, not forces you,
11:15 but makes you look at the academy and the younger players that may be involved in training.
11:18 Is there any young players in particular in this last week or so that you've kind of really
11:21 got to have a closer look at and come into your thinking?
11:24 No, not really, because again, that would be me being negligent, you know, in the past.
11:28 I'm always aware of kind of, you know, a real close link with Simon Davies and the academy
11:33 programme and constantly, you know, whether it's reviewing their games or getting information,
11:37 we know which of the young lads are progressing. So, you know, this situation doesn't make
11:42 any difference in terms of our attention to them. But again, fair to say that with the
11:47 numbers we've got, one or two of them could get an opportunity to be part of the first
11:50 team set up, which again, for them is an opportunity.
11:53 Okay, we'll end the broadcast section there and move on to the...