Ange Postecoglou has declared that Mathys Tel will be a Tottenham player beyond his loan spell from Bayern Munich and that he "didn't bring him here for six months".
Spurs made a transfer deadline day swoop for the 19-year-old attacker, with a long conversation with Postecoglou proving key in getting the deal over the line after the Frenchman asked for more time the previous week to think about the move. Tottenham eventually secured Tel on loan from the Bundesliga side with a £45.8million option to sign the teenager permanently in the summer.
German media reported that Tel had an option to veto any option if he wanted, but in the latest episode of the Gold & Guest Talk Tottenham podcast on Wednesday morning, football.london reported that the north London club were certain that the youngster would become a Spurs player if they took up the option at the end of the season and he had already agreed to a long-term deal.
Postecoglou confirmed that later in the day without leaving any room for doubt when asked about the option.
"He'll be a Tottenham player, mate. He'll be a Tottenham player. I think he'll show everyone he's going to be a Tottenham player in the next six months. I didn't bring him here for six months," he said.
The Spurs head coach then explained exactly what his conversations with Tel consisted of during the late attempts to bring him to north London.
"It was sort of an exchange - conversation, messages - that lasted a couple of hours and I felt that if I kept him on the phone long enough, I would wear him down. He was falling asleep by the end," he joked. "I got a sense pretty early on that there was a connection there and he was hearing what he wanted to hear. It is a big decision. He is a 19-year-old man at a fantastic football club.
"They would have been quite happy to keep him there I am sure, but he also knew he needed to play. But not just play, play where he is going to develop. I think it is a credit to him that rather than just jump at what came at him, he was very thorough in the way he made his decision."
Stars like Harry Kane and Thierry Henry, as well as current England boss and Tel's former Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel have all spoken about how big a player the teenager could become on the world stage.
"Obviously, my opinion is worthless when you’re talking about all these other guys! Their opinion weighs far greater, but that’s the reason I’ve signed him. I think he is very, very exciting," said Postecoglou. "When you meet him you realise he's got that bit about him as a person who has enormous self-belief and confidence in what he can do and what he wants to do. Even though he’s young, physically he’s already in a place where he can take on the enormous challenges of being an attacking player in the Bundesliga and I think he can handle the Premier League.
"He’s a goal-scorer, he can take people on, he’s got speed. He is exciting. I’d be very surprised if there was a club that wouldn’t be interested in somebody like him. Irrespective of the situation we’re in, us being able to get him in and the circumstances behind it, is fantastic for the football club."
Numerous Tottenham players have spoken about Postecoglou's chat with them being the deciding factor in their move with the Australian convincing James Maddison to join Spurs rather than Newcastle, Lucas Bergvall to spurn Barcelona and Radu Dragusin to turn down Bayern among many tempted to N17 by the 59-year-old.
So what exactly is so persuasive about the Australian's phone manner? He admitted that his conversations are not always a success and that January brought a couple of misses when he did not connect with transfer targets.
"I think there is something to be said for honesty and integrity, and as much as actions speak louder than words, I think I’ve got a pretty compelling story to tell," he said. "When I speak to players, I’m not trying to sell anything that there isn’t plenty of evidence for. I think for most players, that’s where they get comfort more than anything else.
"I don’t think it’s smooth-talking, or selling, I think there’s a real good story here which I really believe in. I speak from a real strong conviction that what I’m saying will come to fruition. I really believe that. I don’t think I need to do anything special."
He also admitted: "You’re hearing the success stories. There are plenty of people where it hasn’t worked out. Plenty. There’s been a couple in this window. You know straight away that there is a disconnect and it’s not going to work. What I’m saying and the questions they’re asking, we’re on a different page.
"And that's not a criticism. People look for different things. You're looking for something that resonates. I definitely don't have a 100 per cent hit rate, that's for sure, but I think that’s part of it as well. I get comfort from that too, when I walk away and think 'Jesus, he's a good player but I don’t think it’s going to be a good fit'. It's not going to be a good fit for him, it's not going to be a good fit for us, so it works out well either way."
So what are the red flags when he's talking to a prospective signing and would he name any of the players he didn't connect with?
"You will have to wait for my book!" he responded. "There are red flags, there are. Like I said, it is because I am 59-years-old and we spoke about knowledge before. With age comes wisdom, which is much more powerful than knowledge. You get a sense of these things. Get a sense of people.
"I think I am a pretty good judge of a person. To contextualise that, not a good or bad person, but will the person fit what I am trying to do. That is the main thing for me. There are fantastic footballers, fantastic people who are maybe not the right fit. I am not the right kind of manager for them. You have got to accept that. It is not a judgement call on a value basis.
"Does their personality fit, does their character, where they are in their careers. What kind of questions are they asking? You get a sense of what they say where they are in their careers, and you go 'that marries up with what we are trying to do here'.
"There are red flags, and I think it is important that there are because the last thing I want to do is bring a player here who is not a good fit. It is not good for me and it is not good for the player either. They have got a big decision to make and they need to know what they are walking into and I try to paint as clear a picture as possible what they are coming into.
"There have been times when players have said 'that is not for me'. I respect that. I would rather have that than agree and everyone is happy and the worst thing you can do is have got a great contract and great money and you are not happy and you realise that is not the important thing."
Postecoglou explained that he is not utilised to speak with every player that crosses Tottenham's radar.
"I don’t like having conversations unless I think there’s a real interest there from both sides. It ends up a waste of my time," he said. "Unless we’re really convinced about someone and we feel like there is some sort of interest coming the other way, then I’m not going to get involved in it.
"I don’t really get involved until everything else has been sorted out around financials and that kind of stuff and I know, OK, this is the final box we need to tick, and they’ll kind of wheel me out then."
Spurs' final moves of the transfer window brought two different age profiles in the teenage Tel and the 26-year-old centre-back Kevin Danso from Lens on a loan with an obligation to buy for £20.9million. Postecoglou was asked whether he had to be convinced about signing so many young players with Danso, Dominic Solanke and 21-year-old Antonin Kinsky the only players over the age of 19 brought to the club in the past 12 months.
"I've been a big driver of it. I feel when I took over we needed to rebuild a squad. This wasn’t tinkering around the edges, I’ve said that all along," explained the Australian. "If you’re going to do that invariably you’ve got to go young and allow them to develop together. We had some experience here which has helped and signing Dom was an important part of that. Kevin to an extent because he’s a little bit more experienced.
"Again, that doesn’t mean I’ll see the fruits of that labour. That’s the nature of it, but I’ll always makes decisions I feel are best for the football club and to bring success, that’s the way I’ve worked. All these decisions, I’m as much a driver of as the club. No-one has been thrust upon me who I don’t think is going to fit."
That in itself is surely a sign of some security within his job for the Tottenham head coach?
"I'm not interested in security. It doesn’t exist in the modern game no matter what anyone tells me. Somebody can say 'hey Ange we're right behind you' and then you know.... I mean I've lost him (points to one reporter). I'm down to Ali and that's about it. We're ok, we're solid yeah?" he turned and asked of football.london, prompting a jokingly half-hearted "yeah...." in response which drew a worried exhale of air and laugh from the Australian.
He continued: "I know it’s not the real world. Ultimately, the real world exists around if I keep getting results then I’ll be OK and if I’m not then the inevitable pressure that’s been on me for what feels like the last three or four months will still be there. There’s no guarantees about anything but I don’t care about that.
"Being a manager especially in today’s world you can feel so isolated and so vulnerable, and I don’t feel that. I feel like the playing group is rock solid, the staff are rock solid, I feel supported and that’s all I can ask for. Where that takes us, time will tell. I firmly believe it will take us to success, but there’s no guarantees and I understand that."
Postecoglou would love to call upon Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero to help him on that road to success but both of his key centre-backs are struggling to regain confidence in their bodies after picking up injuries on their returns to action in December against Chelsea.
It is reminiscent somewhat of the way Richarlison took longer than expected to return and Spurs and Postecoglou were ultra-cautious about him coming back into the team. At one point the Spurs boss told the media to stop asking about the Brazilian because there was no set timeframe and he admitted understanding the feeling from the outside that it was dragging on with the centre-backs' returns.
"It probably does [feel that way], it’s probably why I get asked about it on a weekly basis and I understand it, they’re two significant players, but I think whenever a player is out for a significant amount of time and gets reinjured, then you err on the side of being cautious," he said.
"We could take risks with both of them, for sure. Football is funny, they may be able to get through 70-80 minutes, but the fact that there is a risk there and with everything we’re dealing with at the moment, I don’t see the sense in pushing that through. They’re different cases, of course, but they’re both so invaluable to us that I guess the one thing I’m looking at is that when we bring them back, I want them to stay back, because we can’t afford to have another player in that position having a setback after losing Radu.
"What we’ve done with Richy has worked really well for us, this time. The first time he came back, he got reinjured. He’s playing more than I want him to at the moment, which is not great, but he looks strong, he feels a lot better. He was convinced when he came back that he was ready to go. I guess I need to get to that space with Micky and Cristian where they feel like, ‘Yeah I’m ready for the Premier League and whatever else we need to tackle’."
One player who has looked sharp in recent games is captain Son Heung-min and the long-serving South Korean star is desperate to bring a trophy to the club. He will have extra determination to take Spurs into a final if they can avoid defeat at Liverpool in Thursday night's Carabao Cup semi-final second leg.
"Sonny’s been outstanding for us. I’ve said before with Sonny, the extremes we’ve had to put on him this year, it’d be tough for anyone to carry the load he has both from a physical perspective, a mental perspective," said Postecoglou. "I think he was unbelievable against Brentford at the weekend but that’s because he only played 45 minutes on Thursday night.
"Now we haven’t been able to do that. If we had the opportunity to give him the rest he needs to be at his best I think we would have seen it, but I think he’s got a real clear focus in his eye that he senses an opportunity for us as a football club, not just for himself, to have success this year.
"Ben Davies is another one who’s really stepped up in recent times. Two guys who have been at this club for a long time and understand what success will do for this club. Not just for them personally, which should be a drive, because for Sonny everything he’s done for the club it would be more than fitting for him to get some trophies to add to what already is his status at this club. Both of them realise what it means for the club, more importantly, and he’s going to be a part of us hopefully having success."
He added: "All these experiences, I think it depends how you use them. They give you perspective, they give you understanding, they give you learnings. You can be at both ends of the spectrum where you’ve tried and you’ve failed but that’s allowed you to grow, or you can be at the other end where you’ve never failed and don’t know what that looks like, so you just go sort of blindly into anything you’re doing.
"It’s a balance of both. I don’t sense with Sonny in particular or with Ben that there’s any burden on them or they feel like we’re going to fall short or there’s something missing. They’re as optimistic as anyone. And for the other guys, whatever this club’s been through over the last 14 or 15 years trying to get a trophy, they’ve not been part of it so don’t need to feel burdened. They can just go out there and try and change that."
Postecoglou knows that a big performance and a positive result at Anfield to take Tottenham to Wembley would be a huge moment in Spurs' season.
"There’s no hiding it, it would be massive. We’ve had to beat both Manchester clubs to get to this point, we’ve had beat Liverpool to be in this position now," he said. "To get to a final, it’s going to be hard-earned. Going to Anfield, the way they’re going this year, they’ve been an unbelievable team, they’re so consistent, they’re the most settled, injury-free team in the whole league.
"Apart from us, they’re the only ones in all the competitions, still having a crack at all the competitions. All those ingredients, if we manage to overcome that and get to a final, it would be massive.
"Massive for where we’re at, massive for our future. I’m sure it will accelerate the growth of our players and the belief in what we’re trying to do. In that context, it’s a massive night for us, but I think we’ve earned the right to be in this position, even though it’s been a real, difficult season for us. We’ve earned the right to make a big impact."
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