Tottenham boss with Cristian Romero and Van de Ven updates

Submitted by daniel on
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There's a real maturity at only 18. We asked him to play left-back, he has never played that position in his life but does it with a real efficiency and calmness. I am so excited by Archie and that's another positive for us that we have another 18-year-old who just plays and no one mentions that he is 18, they just measure his performance and, like I said, I am asking him to do different jobs. It would probably be more comfortable for him if he was settled in one position but he is playing football at a really high level in Europe and the Premier League. That's going to set us up really well for the player that he is going to become. I thought Lucas [Bergvall] was really good when he came on last night, he made an impact. With everything else we're building, there is some real excitement around the young players as well.

Look, I don't know how many ways I can say this. I understand it. Look, there's plenty of room for pragmatism in walks of life and in football as well. But I'm just not interested in it. I don't know why I need to change my approach to be like everyone else wants me to be. I'll continue to push this team to be a bit different, to play football in a different way and maybe when I'm long gone you'll all pine for my entertainment, and you'll have had your fill of pragmatism. But look, if we were pragmatic I'd say at 2-0 up at City away, we'd have probably settled and we wouldn't have got the victory we did and made it a special moment for our club. I always think of the possibilities of what could be if we continue down this road, rather than holding on to what we have. Because at the moment what do we have? We don't have a hell of a lot. We haven't achieved anything yet, we haven't had success, we haven't done all the things we want to do. So if I start being pragmatic now, maybe we'll never get there. Last night we weren't at our highest level but, jeez, I thought for 20 minutes we were as exciting as we've been since I've been here. I loved our last 20 minutes of the first half. We should have got a third goal to kill the game off but we were exciting to watch. And that's what I want.

We're always planning, planning for every scenario. A lot of it will depend on where we are as a squad at that time. Between now and then, it is only really Romero and Van de Ven who will be back in that time frame, but Richy will hopefully be back in the New Year and we will just assess where we are squad wise but certainly, with Johan [Lange] I've already had a number of meetings for a strategy in January. I think last year we did a little bit of business which ended up helping us, but nothing concrete now because January is always tricky and it depends on where we are squad-wise.