Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou has spoken about a number of concerns over player availability ahead of Liverpool Premier League showdown
Ange Postecoglou is confident Tottenham Hotspur can ruin Liverpool's Premier League title party on Sunday despite concentration on their imminent Europa League semi-final. Tottenham have will play Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt in the first leg of their last-four tie in the competition on Thursday week, four days after their trip to Anfield.
Liverpool will be confirmed champions with victory over Spurs at the weekend regardless of Arsenal's result at home to Crystal Palace on Wednesday. A defeat for the Gunners will hand the Reds the title, while a draw would leave Arne Slot's needing only one more point to win a record-equalling 20th championship.
Tottenham made a number of changes for their 2-1 Premier League defeat at home to Nottingham Forest on Monday night, and removed centre-backs Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven at half-time despite having fallen two goals behind.
But Postecoglou has insisted he is just being careful over the fitness of his players rather than there being any major issues ahead of the trip to Anfield.
“It’s a bit of a balancing act and we have to be smart about what we do," said the Tottenham boss. "We have to be ready for Thursday in a week, with our players healthy. Good test against Liverpool obviously. If we play like we did (against Forest) but keep our concentration level where we should be then we can give them a game.”
Of the decision to replace Romero and Van de Ven at the break on Monday, Postecoglou said: "That was pre-planned. I thought they needed to play some minutes tonight because it becomes 10 days leading into Liverpool.
"With both of them we've got them in a really good place physically now and I just want to keep them ticking over. I felt that there was no need to play more than 45 minutes and we needed to get a couple of others game time."
James Maddison, who suffered an injury in Tottenham's quarter-final second leg win at Eintracht Frankfurt last week. was an unused substitute against Forest while full-back Destiny Udogie missed out altogether. Both, though, are expected to be available against Liverpool.
"They're okay," added Postecoglou. "Destiny was fine. He put in a big physical shift on Thursday and the idea was always to rest him. I wasn't going to put him on so there was no point in putting him on the bench.
"Madders was pretty sore but in the last 24 hours he recovered and was keen to be on the bench. They're both fine."