What tickled Ange Postecoglou, Federico Chiesa truth and what Tottenham boss meant on transfers

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There's a togetherness about this very young Tottenham Hotspur group. With some of the senior players still away on international duty and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg having recently departed for Marseille, the average age has plummeted.

When you walk into the lobby of the team hotel in Tokyo, Richarlison heads over to shake hands but you swiftly realise that even at 27 he's practically ancient within this group. For next you see 16-year-old Mikey Moore heading off for an appearance with the supporters.

Not only must it be an amazing experience for someone so young to come to this part of the world, but poor Son Heung-min must feel incredibly old when he trains alongside someone who is half his age in the gifted youngster.

Moore is just one of the young group that Ange Postecoglou has brought on this tour to Asia among a big 31-man squad. The dynamic of the tour has been one of enthusiasm and excitement and that comes with so much young talent all jostling to impress and soak up the experience.

There are so many young players involved that Spurs had prepared a behind-closed-doors friendly on Thursday night for their U21s - with a couple of slightly older players sprinkled in - against Japan U20s.

Tottenham's young side, including Moore, won 5-2 on the night in a game that was only an hour long due to the incredible heat and humidity of 35 degrees Celsius at the 5pm kick-off. The idea was to give some players minutes this week who might not get as much game time in Saturday's official friendly against Vissel Kobe as Postecoglou starts to increase the load on the senior players.

The youngsters were no doubt thankful even if they didn't look it at the time, drenched in sweat after one of the most physically demanding friendly games they will have ever played.

On Friday morning, Tottenham's scheduled media duties began to kick in. football.london was invited to watch new signings Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall alongside Dejan Kulusevski, Pedro Porro and Alejo Veliz meet with children and families from Yokohama Children’s Hospice.

The quintet were there to take part in a series of games focused on aspects of Japanese culture and it's fair to say they dived right in, with activities that included cardboard cut-out sumo wrestling and playing hand keepy-uppy with some paper balls.

The family nature of this Spurs squad was there to be seen in how quickly the newcomers have adapted and how this felt like a group of siblings in Tottenham training wear. Kulusevski is very much the big brother to Bergvall, but the younger Swede was equally laughing and joking with all of his team-mates and also very good with the Japanese children.

Likewise, Porro appears to have taken Veliz under his wing, with the young Argentine's English still in its infancy. Porro's own grasp of it is improving quickly and he promised football.london that he will soon be able to do an interview in English, having previously done one last summer in Perth through a translator.

Porro is a smiling force of nature. He's constantly on the move, making noise and looking to make his mark, regardless of what the activity is. He was playing with the children, making them laugh, shouting and even grabbed a photographer's camera at one point and started taking photos of everyone.

There's a story about Paul Gascoigne at the 1990 World Cup getting told off by Sir Bobby Robson and the coaching staff because he would be playing hours worth of tennis in the sun in between matches rather than resting.

From the stories around this Spurs camp it sounds like Porro can be an equally hyperactive bundle of energy and that's probably what makes him one of the fittest players in the club right now.

Then there is Archie Gray, who might just be the nicest 18-year-old in the world. Spend 10 minutes in his company, chatting away, and you come away feeling positive and certain that if Archie represents the next generation then not only Spurs, but this planet, might just have a decent future. Honestly, it's no exaggeration.

The teenager came through at Leeds with plenty of attention on him thanks to his family legacy and the spotlight squarely on him. He should be guarded and wary of the media. Instead, he's a delight, full of enthusiasm, a glint in his eye and everything said with a chuckle not too far behind.

When he walked away from his interview with football.london, he could be heard thanking the press officer for the opportunity to do the event with the children. That's not the way round it normally goes with player appearances.

The buzz around Gray within Spurs is huge. Everyone raves about his talent as well as his personality, with a feeling that he could be the club's superstar in the centre of the pitch for years to come if he continues his current trajectory.

That interview with the teenager will be coming up shortly today (Saturday) on football.london, with ones with the two Swedes Bergvall and Kulusevski in the next couple of days, with plenty of insights from the duo about life inside the club and what is coming next for them under Postecoglou.

After that it was time for them all to head to the National Stadium in Tokyo for a light training session in front of 3,000 Spurs fans.

First up though was the press conference within the building with Postecoglou and James Maddison, who was filling in for the unwell Timo Werner.

The press conference was a classic one abroad with a moderator and a remarkably talented translator lady, who impressed the Spurs head coach with the way she was immediately reeling off his lengthy monologues in Japanese. As she said afterwards to the two English media present as we offered our own praise: "Thank you, but you don't know if I was saying any of it right."

As is often the case with joint manager and player press conferences, the boss ends up doing the heavy lifting, especially one who had worked in Japan for almost four years. Maddison had relatively little to answer but made it clear that he expects Tottenham to challenge for trophies this season, he predicted that the Postecoglou way is going to bring big things for the north London club and dropped the major news that his former Leicester team-mate Shinji Okazaki is a great dancer.

Postecoglou had tougher subjects to deal with. With the transfer window now hotting up after the end of the Euros and Copa America, Tottenham fans are beginning to worry about the lack of new senior players coming through the door that can help Postecoglou realise his ambition to challenge for the Premier League title this season.

The Australian's answer to football.london on the subject was clear and left little doubt that Spurs are not veering away from their original transfer targets for this window as they believe they are the best fitting for the head coach's system and demands.

"As you say, at this time of year it’s pretty hard for supporters because they don’t have all the information and it’s fair to say there’s plenty of misinformation out there," he said. "We’re working hard to bring players in and it’s a process that you sometimes have to be patient with, but in terms of what we set out to do, that’s still the plan and you have to stay disciplined with that.

"Sometimes the timings don’t work out and it doesn’t happen as quickly as you want and you don’t get them (players) in at the right time but I think it’s really important you stay disciplined and not run off and chase other things.

"So, what we started with at the start of summer are still there, and I wouldn't want to put timelines on it. A lot of that is out of our control and we just need to be patient. From where I sit at the moment we're still in that phase where what we identified is still what we’re after."

That misinformation Postecoglou spoke of is rife and even more widespread due to the quieter way Spurs' technical director Johan Lange works compared to his predecessor Fabio Paratici. In the past, Tottenham's targets - thanks to Paratici's tactic of negotiating for multiple players for each position - were long splashed across the media, most notably in Italy.

Now though educated guesses, tenuous links or simply names pushed by agents appear in the headlines with Spurs or Postecoglou's names alongside them.

Take the recent noise around Juventus star Federico Chiesa in Italy. The 26-year-old Italian has plenty of talent but spent a long time out with a cruciate ligament injury. Last season was his first full one back and it was an understandably inconsistent one with just three goals and no assists in Serie A between the end of November and the start of May.

So while the links between Tottenham and the versatile Chiesa have been strong and widespread in his homeland, those in and around Spurs have been left non-plussed by the stories with football.london understanding that the player is not believed to be one of Postecoglou's original targets and therefore there is no truth to the current reports.

The actual targets appear to lie elsewhere and if they were to eventually turn to someone like Chiesa before the window ends then it would only suggest that Tottenham would no longer be in what Postecoglou deemed as "that phase where what we identified is still what we're after".

It's a risky strategy of course in holding out for the players they really want because if those moves are eventually deemed impossible then they are left scrambling late in the window for the names further down their lists for each position.

However, it does also show a desire to create the squad that Postecoglou wants and sticking to the plan rather than reacting to the deals that appear to make sense. The Spurs boss must be comfortable in having less pre-season time with those targets if it means getting the players that fit his system the best.

Postecoglou certainly does not seem unhappy. He was in good form in Tokyo, laughing with the translator and having fun with questions about potentially signing Japanese players and a Korean one in Yang Min-hyuk.

The Australian took even greater delight in football.london getting cut off by the Japanese moderator - rightly so - after their second question to him - the one about transfers - as they were about to ask Maddison a question.

Just watch back the footage of the press conference, about 18 minutes and 44 seconds in, to see Postecoglou's face as he realises what's happening and how much it tickles him. As he walked out of the room afterwards, he told this reporter that he loved that moment and with a grin turned to his press officer and asked him to ensure that it becomes a regular occurrence back at Hotspur Way next season as well. A 12,000 mile round trip to be the victim of Postecoglou banter was not part of the football.london job description.

Afterwards, training was light, including an overloaded 11 vs 8 mini-match with one goal, which was fascinating to watch with players swapping in and out on both sides and all with the end result of producing as many of those classic Postecoglou goals as possible with the low crosses and finishes.

It was also interesting to watch, after his involvement in that mini-game, Djed Spence being drilled individually by senior assistant coach Matt Wells in the final 15 minutes or so of the session.

The right-back was being put through his paces with an emphasis on trying to deal with Wells running alongside him as a winger, with Spence having to work on his body shape in order to prevent the Spurs coach from getting a cross away or move past him. They continued for a little while after the other players had finished.

Spence has worked hard in pre-season and it hasn't gone unnoticed by the coaching staff. His future may still lie elsewhere, with interest in his services and competition in his position at Tottenham, but he has done everything possible to put himself back in the conversation when Postecoglou thinks about his full-back options in the weeks ahead.

Across the city, Tottenham have also brought an U15s side out to Japan and they played in a game against a team of J League counterparts on Friday night.

With the first team, with the unwell Werner absent, Richarlison, Destiny Udogie and Alfie Whiteman were the only other players who did not take part in training, but that trio did emerge in order to come over with the squad after the session to acknowledge the fans and take selfies and sign things for them.

The 3,000 Spurs supporters inside the stadium were magnificent, with all of the chants usually heard in N17 ringing out across the Tokyo night and a wonderful array of shirts from over the years and names on the back being worn.

From the current crop there were plenty of Archie Gray tops, even youngsters like Jamie Donley could be seen on the back of a couple, plus throwback names such as Aaron Lennon among others.

For the club's these tours are about the preparation for the coming season and of course the financial benefits and desire to grow the fanbase, but on a simple level it provides the chance for incredibly passionate fans who cheer from the other side of the world at ungodly hours of the morning or night to finally see their heroes in the flesh. It's difficult to understand that until you see the excitement it creates your eyes.

Football is a global affair and so certainly are Tottenham Hotspur.

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