Ange Postecoglou has indicated that Tottenham's January plans may depend on the status of his squad come the turn of the year. Following a busy summer transfer window in north London, Spurs supporters will be hoping that a couple more additions can be added to the roster in January to give the team a boost in what remains of the season.
Tottenham will be looking to go far in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League in 2025 as well as finishing as high as possible in the Premier League. As things stand at present, Spurs are quite short on numbers due to various injuries and also the loss of Rodrigo Bentancur to a seven-match ban - though the midfielder will return before the end of the year.
Micky van de Ven is not expected to return to action until the middle of next month due to his hamstring injury, with fellow first-choice centre-back Cristian Romero unavailable for Saturday's game at Manchester City. Wilson Odobert faces a lengthy spell in the treatment room after undergoing hamstring surgery last weekend, Richarlison will also be absent for a period of time after such an injury-hit campaign so far and Mikey Moore remains out after missing games prior to the international break through illness.
Due to a lack of available players right now, Postecoglou was asked by football.london in his pre-match press conference if the current injuries will force him to change his transfer plans in the winter market. When giving his answer, the 59-year-old hinted at timeframes for Odobert and Richarlison to feature again.
"It just depends. Again, January is always a tricky one. You don't really plan for significant things in January, but a lot of that will be dictated by how we are at that time," he explained.
"Obviously Wilson will be out for a fair chunk of the season, Richy hopefully will be back in the new year but similar to Micky we just need to be careful every step of the way and Mikey will still be out for a little bit of time. So, we're a little bit short there but it just depends if by January we get two or three back we may not need to but we'll kind of see as it goes."
Despite a number of blows at present at a time when Tottenham need to find some consistency in the league, Postecoglou believes that his players are ready to get on with things rather than feeling sorry for themselves.
"I don't get the sense they are," he added. "Obviously it's three international breaks we've gone in on the back of a loss which is not great to deal with, but you can see with the way they've performed at international level, they've made significant impacts most of the guys that went away so that helps with their mindset to move on quickly.
"It's really important when they come back here again we move on pretty quickly. They understand we still have got to do our review and we did that. We looked back at the areas we need to be better, but I don't get the sense the lads are down in the dumps in any way. I think there is a determination there to get back to the level we need to be and get consistency around that."
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