Ange Postecoglou has sensed that his Tottenham squad are excited by the prospect of doing something special in what remains of the season. A top-half finish in the Premier League table looks a big ask for Spurs heading into the final nine games of the term but they do still have the opportunity to win the Europa League.
Eintracht Frankfurt are their opponents in the quarter-finals, with one of Lazio or Bodo/Glimt waiting for them in the semi-finals if they progress past their German opponents. Tottenham's form has been incredibly mixed over the course of the season and it is something they must put right if they are to finally get their hands on some silverware.
What will help Tottenham in the run-in is that Postecoglou now has the vast majority of his players back to fitness ahead of a crucial block of games. Now back at Hotspur Way putting in the work, the Australian has given an insight into what he has picked up from his players and those who have just returned.
"I haven’t had to remind them, internally they’ve felt that," said Postecoglou. "The injured players have been really frustrated they haven’t been able to help. You’ve seen that. We all understand what a tough year it’s been for everybody but particularly those players who have had to carry the load. It’s the worst thing when you can’t help your team and contribute.
"As they’ve trickled back, you can sense their enthusiasm and their energy is transferring to the guys who have gone through that period. I do sense the players are excited by the prospect of: we’re here now, whatever we’ve been through, we’ve been through and we’ve still got an opportunity to do something special this year. Let’s tackle that in the manner we try to do everything so far. Playing our football and having a real positive mindset about things."
While a strong finish to the Premier League season is vital as positive results can give Spurs a big boost going into their European fixtures, the team are now in a position where they have a rare opportunity to have a singular focus on winning the Europa League.
"We’ve earned the right to that," said the 59-year-old. "We’ve got to the quarter-finals because of performances through the tough period we had to do that to get to this point with some very difficult moments and a lot of young players, not just first-team players but players in our academy, to get us to this point. I think the players who have deserved to be in this position to have a crack at achieving something."
He added: "We kind of know now that there's nine league games, hopefully five in Europa, so you've got 14 games - 53 days together. So you've got a clear amount of time, with no interruption. So you've got a clear plan there of what we can do. But you've got to chip away at it game by game and it starts tomorrow night."
Dejan Kulusevski is one Tottenham player working his way back to fitness from a foot injury at present. The Swede is unlikely to be back in time for next Thursday's Europa League quarter-final first leg tie against Eintracht Frankfurt but he could possibly be involved the following week.
"Not the first leg. I’m sure he’ll be pushing for the second leg but… he’s out of the boot that was the first hurdle," said Postecoglou. "Now he’s out there training. It’s just gonna be about how he progresses. We’re talking a couple of weeks so definitely not the first leg. A chance for the second."
Before Tottenham take on the German side, Chelsea and Southampton are to come for them in the Premier League. Postecoglou has yet to secure a win against the Blues having lost all three of his games since taking on the Tottenham hotseat.
Two of those fixtures have been rather eye-catching, with Chelsea running out 4-1 and 4-3 winners at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium over the past two seasons.
"Yeah, bizarre games. You always review some of the previous games against your opponents and both bizarre games," said Postecoglou. "In the first half-hour of both those games, we were unbelievable, as good as we've been. Then things just fell apart. That happens in football sometimes. And again that's stuff you can't control.
"There's some learnings there but there's also some understanding that when we are playing at our best, we're a pretty compelling team against anybody. And we saw that in those games, particularly here at home.
"It's a different challenge away from home playing Chelsea. It's a tighter ground. It tends to not be too open in terms of the football. So I think it will be a different game and require different things from us."
One of the main talking points from December's 4-3 defeat against Chelsea was the head coach's decision to name Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven in his team after both had spent time on the sidelines. Many felt he had brought the duo back too soon, with both players unfortunately forced off with injuries in the topsy-turvy encounter in N17.
"Romero was coming back from a knock on his toe but he was fit. Micky with his hamstring, he'd passed all the tests, we'd done everything and everyone felt like he was ready to go," stressed Postecoglou.
"There was some other context around that: we'd lost a couple of other centre-halves. And it unravelled. I know going into the game, my main concern was Micky. I wasn't really concerned about Cristian but then you lose Cristian to an unrelated injury and it puts more pressure on Micky and then he gets injured.
"Yeah, look, again, in hindsight, I would have not played either of them - and they would have got injured in the next game mate. That's just the way football works. With those kind of things, it's better you take a step back and look at it from an overall perspective rather than a pinpoint in time.
"That's what I was talking about before, on looking at how we went into the season. Some guys, especially Romero, hardly did any pre-season with us and it wasn't wise to play him from the first game. That's something that we need to look at, guys who don't do pre-season. I've done it before in my career where you wait until they're ready to go. But I think that's all for the end of the year."
Chelsea, just like Tottenham, have endured a bit of a difficult run of late but they do remain in an excellent position in the Premier League table to secure Champions League qualification come May. Enzo Maresca's side may have struggled against teams sitting back recently but Postecoglou is not considering switching things up going into Thursday's 8pm kick-off.
"Er… No, mate. Sorry to disappoint," responded Postecoglou when asked if he try a different approach. "We’ll go there and have a crack and see if it’ll be a good game and hopefully we’ll come out on top.
"I think every club is on its own journey and I was brought here for a couple of specific reasons. One was to change the way the club plays its football, rejuvenate the squad and bring some success. We’re well and truly on that road and we’ll stay on that road until those things happen."
Postecoglou was very honest with Optus Sport earlier in the week when he admitted "we got the start of the year wrong" and that they "maybe would have taken a different approach knowing the kind of season we had ahead". Pushed a bit further on his comments and if he was talking about pre-season, the former Australia boss said: "No, no… I think at start of the season, know what kind of pre-season we’d had, really disruptive in terms of the amount of players who weren’t part of it for an extended period of time.
"We just went into the league season, and then into Europe and a decent run in the Carabao Cup. In retrospect I should have looked at it from a different perspective in terms of when we introduce players into the first team to really drive into our season."
He added: "It’s more about who’s involved in it rather than anything else. We had a lot of players on international duty who came back pretty late in the piece.
"What I’m trying to explain is that players need a good two-to-three week block of training before they play. If that means somebody comes in the last week of pre-season rather than putting him in the first team, give him that block and make him available for selection after we’ve had a decent hit at it.
"It's not the actual design of pre-season. This year, what we’ve done so far, it’s looking like from a games programme and the trips we need to do it’s a decent games programme."
Amid the amount of injuries this season and the ever-increasing calendar for both international and domestic teams, Postecoglou was asked if there could be a maximum amount of games or potentially even capped minutes if there are to be some alterations.
“I think it will get to a point where it has got to be a combination of that," he said. "I definitely think players need a certain amount of time for their bodies to recover at the end of the year. Most players these days, it’s not like they just go and sit on the beach, most of them are pretty smart and look after themselves.
“Having a minimum set number of days where they have zero contact with football is important. Then it’s the amount of games and I might have mentioned it in the interview I did, this is the only league where you have got this amount of teams, three cup competitions, no winter break and no sort of rest weekends before European fixtures. It’s the only league that does it. Either we’re smarter than everyone else or maybe there’s something in what others are doing.
“There has to be a time where everyone sits together and I know it’s going to hit revenues and the players are part of that because they are beneficiaries of those revenues. But we will get to a point to where we get rid of squad limits and clubs have 40-plus players on their books to cope with it or you are going to get what we have at the moment. You watch the Arsenal game last night and players getting injured, going down getting injured. It’s going to become more prevalent I think.
“Invariably it’s hitting clubs in European competition more or clubs who have had extended cup runs or who have a lot of international players. Yeah, I think it’s not like it’s decreasing because we’ve had two extra European games this year and in fact it’s going the other way.
“The demands of international football, of continental football, are increasing so at some point something has to give if we want the product to remain and we want to look after the most important participants which are the players."
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