Football365

Ange Postecoglou wasn’t impressed with a reporter’s line of questioning ahead of Tottenham’s trip to AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League.

Spurs have endured a difficult season under Postecoglou, with the Europa League the only remaining opportunity for the Australian to “win a trophy in my second season” as he insisted he always does early in the campaign.

Winning the gong would also grant them entry into the Champions League, which provides a huge carrot given European football looks incredibly unlikely through the Premier League as they currently sit 13th in the English top flight.

Rather than asking Postecoglou about the upcoming clash with AZ Alkmaar, one reporter instead decided to fish for a story on Bissouma, and the Spurs boss laughed off his attempts, insisting “you’re better than that!”

The reporter asked: “Yves Bissouma posted a couple of pictures of himself at a ski resort. First of all I assume you gave the players a couple of days off?”

“Seriously, what sort of question is that?” Postecoglou said, before adding sarcastically: “No I didn’t, we were training but he decided to go skiing…

“Come on mate, you’re better than that!”

Refusing to back down, the reporter then asked Postecoglou whether Bissouma did indeed go skiing.

Postecoglou bit back: “Well, he obviously did.

“I don’t worry about those things, mate. They’re adults, they’re human beings, they had a couple of days off.

“They can choose to use that time as wisely as they can to help them be ready for what’s in store for us.

“You kind of hope that they’re sensible about these things and go about whatever they do in a manner that befits the position they hold, but I have no concerns… and he’s fine.”

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Bissouma is in line to feature for Spurs in their last-16 first leg tie against AZ Alkmaar, who they beat 1-0 during the league phase of the Europa League in October.

Centre-backs Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, as well as striker Dominic Solanke, have also travelled to the Netherlands.

“All three have been training with us and training well,” Postecoglou said. “I’ll decide whether they get significant match minutes or not, but it’s great to have them back.

“They feel good. They’ve been pretty frustrated not being able to help, but they’re in a position where they can.

“In the last few weeks we’ve had [Guglielmo] Vicario, Destiny [Udogie], Wilson [Odobert] and [James] Maddison all come back and you’ve seen the impact they’ve had. I’m sure the guys coming back now will have equally as important an impact.”

Spurs are aiming to win a first trophy since 2008 and Postecoglou says his players “really understand there is a great opportunity” in the Europa League.

“The club hasn’t in recent years done well in this competition, but it’s a major European competition, we’re in the last 16, there’s an opportunity there and we’ll see how far we can go in it.

“We’ve got to make sure, whatever happens at the end of the game, we’ve still got an opportunity to go back to Tottenham and win the tie.”

Southampton winger Tyler Dibling is reportedly drawing significant attention from top Premier League clubs, with Tottenham Hotspur emerging as the frontrunners for his signature.

The 19-year-old has been one of the standout performers in a tough season for Southampton, despite the club’s imminent relegation to the Championship.

Dibling, who is highly regarded as one of the most exciting young talents in English football, has impressed with his direct attacking style, scoring four goals and registering two assists in 28 appearances this season. His performances have earned comparisons to players like Cole Palmer,

Former England player Dion Dublin notably compared both Dibling and Chelsea star Palmer, adding to the 19-year-old’s hype.

“Do you know what it is? I don’t want to put any pressure on him, but he plays his game like Cole Palmer, doesn’t he?”

According to talkSPORT, Tottenham, who are currently facing a disappointing campaign, are eager to bolster their squad this summer, and Dibling has become a key target. While Southampton has reportedly set a price tag of £50 million for the winger, Spurs believe the price could drop if the Saints are relegated.

The north London club is confident they can secure a deal for Dibling, especially with Southampton’s financial pressures post-relegation.

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Despite Southampton’s struggles, Dibling’s individual form has been a highlight, and his rapid rise has attracted interest from several top clubs, including Manchester United, Chelsea, Newcastle, and Aston Villa.

However, Tottenham are reportedly in pole position to sign the young winger, with talks expected to intensify once Southampton’s relegation is confirmed.

Dibling’s ability to operate on both wings could provide valuable depth for Spurs, who have faced injury woes and a lack of goals this season.

With record signing Dominic Solanke struggling and sidelined with injury, Dibling could be a smart addition to Tottenham’s attack. Additionally, he could eventually serve as a long-term replacement for Tottenham captain Son Heung-min, whose contract is set to expire in 2026.

As the summer transfer window approaches, all eyes will be on Dibling’s next move, and Tottenham appear well-placed to secure his services, despite growing competition.

For no real reason other than a bit of sh*thousery, here are five Premier League managers we don’t expect to be in their current Premier League roles by the end of 2025.

We took the decision to exclude the three managers of the three clubs obviously getting relegated from consideration, because that would have been no fun.

Ange Postecoglou (Tottenham)

Astonishingly fortunate to still have a job having created an injury crisis with his absurd football and then survived a disastrous series of results precisely because of that same injury crisis.

Having weathered the worst of the storm it now looks like Postecoglou will probably survive the season, especially while the Europa League remains an attainable goal. And it’s a goal that Postecoglou’s own failures this season have paradoxically rendered more achievable given it is now very obviously a primary focus.

If he delivers that promised second-season trophy and with it a Champions League place, he will be able to legitimately point to the fact this instantly becomes Spurs’ best season in 40 years and it would thus probably be quite harsh to bin him despite the obvious frailties and flaws inherent in everything he does.

There is no doubt the fact that his future prospects at Tottenham now rely on a high-wire, high-stakes, high-risk, high-reward, sh*t-or-bust gamble on one knockout tournament does feel very much in sync with his ‘Just who we are, mate’ philosophy.

But even if we didn’t have to take the Spurs Trophy Factor into account – and we surely do – the bald fact that he probably needs to win the Europa League to have a better-than-even chance of seeing in 2026 as Tottenham manager is enough to make him an easy first pick here.

It’s not even ‘LOL Spursy Spurs’ to observe that on balance of probability they will not in fact win the Europa League. Fifteen of the 16 teams still in it will not win it and while Spurs have a better shot than most, it remains a pretty flimsy basket in which to have placed all one’s season-and-job-saving eggs.

And should Spurs go Full Spurs at any time over the next couple of rounds would anyone truly be surprised to see the perfunctory motions of the remainder of a moribund Premier League season gone through by Ryan ‘Interim’ Mason?

It would be purely symbolic at that stage and a neater summer split remains more likely, but while we have underestimated Daniel Levy’s level of attachment to his current manager before, we remain of the view that it would be more surprising if he is Spurs manager on January 1 than if he isn’t.

READ: Postecoglou sack: Five #AngeIn myths debunked as Levy urged to act now

Enzo Maresca (Chelsea)

Has made the foolish error of reversing Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea arc by starting superbly and then having it all turn to sh*t.

And the fact that turning a sh*t start into a superb finish still wasn’t enough to save Pochettino when it is generally considered a much more attractive way round to do things should really worry Maresca.

Very clearly still a manager adjusting to his first elite job who hasn’t yet quite learned that an elite job brings with it certain expectations, Maresca’s apparent fondness for saying very small-time things indeed has not endeared him to a Chelsea fanbase well used to managerial churn but also well used to extraordinary success.

With the erratic disruptor-in-chief Todd Boehly ever prone to a kneejerk response to any setback, it’s doubtful that even a probable saunter through the formalities of adding the Conference League to Chelsea’s otherwise complete set of European baubles could save Maresca now form and opinion have started to turn against him. And if they somehow don’t win the Conference…

Pep Guardiola (Man City)

The way we see it, there are only two possibilities here at opposite extremes of the spectrum.

Man City complete a reset and regeneration in the summer – they did, in fairness, make a start on this in January given their season was already f*cked – and a rested and rejuvenated Pep Guardiola has them back in their rightful place 10 points clear by the end of 2025.

Or, and we’re starting to think more plausibly, the summer gives him time to pause, reflect and realise he has had enough of it all, that he doesn’t have the energy or enthusiasm to rebuild a new great Manchester City side from scratch.

There is no in-between option that we can see at this time.

Whether it all ends in the summer or more damagingly and unpleasantly in the early months of the next season, the end has never seemed nearer for one of the great Premier League managers.

One thing that remains certain is that whenever Guardiola’s time at City is up it will one hundred per cent be on his own terms. He, not City, will decide when this ends. For all the giddy talk when City were at their late-2024 worst, there is quite correctly no way they will sack him.

Andoni Iraola (Bournemouth)

Because he will be tasked with finding out whether he can impose his slightly less demented brand of attacking football on Spurs’ pack of dafties after Postecoglou gets the tin-tack.

He probably shouldn’t accept the job but also he probably will accept the job, because football.

Iraola has shown a greater adaptability than Postecoglou managed with greater resources in the face of an injury crisis, with the obvious worry there for Spurs that he might just be another manager whose style of football carries enhanced injury risk.

Iraola’s Bournemouth have also been a gloriously streaky side, prone to bursting into runs of seven wins from nine games and then just not bothering to win in the league for another six weeks or somesuch. But what passes for endearing eccentricity at Bournemouth would see protests and banners at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

These are things to give Daniel Levy pause, but there’s obviously something he’s enjoying about Angeball because he hasn’t binned it off yet despite things getting well beyond the point he would normally have pressed the big red Ryan Mason button. So maybe when he does have to reluctantly change in the summer he’ll go for the nearest current match in the Barclays.

Let’s also not forget that the last managerial appointment Levy got undeniably right was when he appointed an enterprising manager who had caught the eye with a smaller Premier League club. Very Levy and Very Spurs that this is a tactic they have never once thought to try again because they thought they were bigger and cleverer than that.

Mikel Arteta (Arsenal)

F*ck it, got to go big with the last one here, haven’t we? Can’t all be built on logic. We did, of course, consider Ruben Amorim but our suspicion there is that there will be a deep reluctance from all sides to admit they’ve all f*cked it right up even as the earth is being scorched and salted. Everyone will stick it out for appearance’s sake and another two or three rounds of redundancies until at least this time next year, hiding behind the idea he needs to be given time for his signings to integrate with what’s left of the squad of unsuitables and undesirables he inherited.

Absolutely everyone involved will be lying to themselves as it all plays to an inevitable yet painfully drawn-out conclusion, but the key thing is we just don’t see that conclusion coming swiftly enough for a 2025 deadline.

Then we thought about Eddie Howe. We still suspect that if the owners of Newcastle even care that much any more and aren’t all distracted by the World Cup and such that they will at some stage wish to install a Genuinely Elite Manager at St James’ Park, and what Genuinely Elite Manager generally means is Not An English Manager.

But every time we make any attempt to get a ‘Howe Sack’ narrative moving the prick goes and wins like eight games in a row, so we’re not risking that again.

Arne Slot would be a bold choice but a performative one. Unai Emery? There were Mailbox rumblings after that Palace defeat that were hard to ignore. But is he really a big enough fish to justify going balls out? Not really.

It has to be Arteta. Another (probably) trophyless season is going to require a fresh round of process-trusting, and we’re just not sure anyone can be bothered with it anymore.

Arteta has cut an even more manic and frazzled figure than ever before this season, which also only makes us even more suspicious about his hair.

At some time Arsenal have to reach a point where they conclude Arteta has carried them far but can get them no further. The fact he still hasn’t won a non-asterisked trophy with his own team has to start counting for something, and it hurts him significantly that the team Arsenal couldn’t stay with isn’t even Man City but a team under a brand new manager.

Ange Postecoglou was so giddy about getting some players back that he chose not to play his best ones against the reigning champions. Defeat to Manchester City is on him.

Ange Postecoglou has been aghast at having to answer the same questions about Tottenham’s struggles this season. “I don’t know how else to explain it, mate,” he said earlier this month, shaking his head while extolling the virtues of his young, overworked team during an injury crisis.

But those “most extreme circumstances” have abated to the point where he can afford to drop the guy who got two assists in their last game against Ipswich, the guy who scored a superb solo goal in that same game and has been their best player this season, and the guy who also scored and has been lauded for one of the best individual performances of the season in the aftermath. He must have quite the squad. That’s the only logical explanation for a top manager to be leaving those players out of the starting lineup for a trip to the Etihad.

You can probably guess where we’re going here. A top manager would surely have looked at the fixture list and decided not to play Son Heung-min, Dejan Kulusevski and Djed Spence against relegation-threatened Ipswich if he didn’t think them capable of playing two games in the space of four days in order to take the field from the start against the reigning champions. Ange Postecoglou is not a top manager.

He even hailed Djed Spence’s form as being “as good as any full-back” in the Premier League when asked about his England chances, pointing out that “he’s not really a left-back” before switching him into his more natural position to tear Ipswich apart on Saturday.

But Pedro Porro was preferred and Jeremy Doku was delighted to see him. There were at least three occasions when the City winger breezed past Porro when we thought he would either have been bullied off the ball by Spence or at least matched stride for stride.

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It was his deflected cross that found the actual Erling Haaland unmarked in the six-yard box to sweep the ball past Guglielmo Vicario, after Destiny Udogie – whom Spence should also been playing ahead of – watched the Premier League’s most feared marksman amble past him into position. It was horrible defending.

City were good in the first half, sweeping the ball from side to side quickly. Savinho really should have scored from an excellent Doku cross and Haaland could have had a hat-trick had he not fluffed one chance and seen another well saved by Vicario. But Spurs were all over the place.

They looked like they didn’t know what they were doing again, having looked like a proper team for the first time in a long time against Ipswich, just as they did for most of the second half here, particularly after the introductions of Son, Spence and Kulusevski shortly after the hour mark. Funny that.

Postecoglou has had the significant caveat of Tottenham’s undeniably significant injury crisis to lean upon amid questions over his future this season, with three Premier League wins on the bounce before this drawing attention away from his side being knocked out of both domestic cups. But there’s no excuse for this team selection.

“Those three have played a lot of football in recent times,” he said ahead of kick-off. But he’s got to plan better. Wilson Odobert, James Maddison and Porro were all fit to start against Ipswich but were saved for a trip to Manchester City. It just doesn’t make sense. Playing your best players in big games is Football Management 101.

Lazy Thomas Tuchel will soon be forced to do some actual work for his obscene wage as England manager and pick an actual squad and get them to play some actual football. That’ll teach the Germany-based layabout.

Anyway, who will be in that squad? There lies the fun, because we don’t know, do we? It’s all very new and exciting. Although it will probably still be Jordan Pickford in nets.

But beyond that, quite literally anything could happen. Here’s a list, then, of 10 players who could get either a first or unexpected second England chance under the workshy German. Rules are these: only players with no previous England call-up or whose last was more than 12 months ago qualify.

That means, for instance, that Marcus Rashford (and indeed Jordan Henderson) is sadly ineligible here. So don’t say him, but do jump in the comments to tell us who we have forgotten or overlooked because lord knows there will be several. This is non-exhaustive. We just like round numbers. But mainly we like Djed Spence.

Djed Spence (Tottenham Hotspur Or Spurs)

We cannot help but feel for poor old Gareth Southgate. We all know how much he loved and took great pride in two things. One: being the manager of England. Two: picking right-backs to play at left-back for England. And three would be something about waistcoats, although he did seem to go off those towards the end.

The question is this: would Southgate have packed in the England job had he known that Djed Spence was mere months away from metamorphosing into the right-back-at-left-back of his wildest dreams? He surely would not. But nor could Southgate, or indeed any of us, have seen this coming.

Spence started the season unable even to make Tottenham’s Europa League squad and by mid-December had scraped together barely an hour of Premier League football across four forgettable substitute appearances.

His first league start of the season came in the 5-0 win at Southampton and it took him less than a minute to set up James Maddison’s opening goal. He has missed only two games since: through suspension against Wolves and injury against Leicester. Spurs were rubbish in both those games, although that admittedly doesn’t say a lot.

Spence has now, though, taken to racking up man-of-the-match awards in Spurs wins with almost embarrassing regularity and despite not making his first start until mid-December is a live contender to be Spurs’ player of the season. That may say as much about Spurs’ season as Spence’s gloriously unlikely renaissance, but still.

Does now have a place in Spurs’ Europa League squad and surely merits one in Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad. Tuchel may not quite share Southgate’s fetish for right-backs who can play left-back – who does? – but such players are and will forever remain enormously useful in any tournament squad, and left-back is still not a position in which England are blessed with a super-abundance of options.

Lewis Hall was the leading left-back in the last England World Cup ladder, FFS.

Eric Dier (Bayern Munich)

From a current Spurs player enjoying an unlikely career uptick to a former Spurs player doing likewise.

Harry Kane smashing in all manner of goals in the Bundesliga is no surprise to anyone given the alacrity with which he used to do likewise for a worse team in a better league, but his mate Eric turning up from Spurs wilderness and becoming the cornerstone of the Bayern defence is a bit more of an eyebrow-raiser.

Hindsight is 20:20 but a quick look through some of the ‘centre-backs’ Spurs have deployed since allowing Dier to leave suggest they may have made one of their many, many errors there. Not that Bayern are complaining.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: England have a bit of an issue at centre-back with mounting doubts around long-term favourites Harry Maguire and John Stones and nobody making a truly compelling job of replacing them and there’s a 49-cap, three-tournament veteran out there doing impressive work for one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Dier is 31 and not in any way a long-term solution to England’s problems. But Tuchel isn’t a man looking for long-term solutions as he lounges around on his German sofa in Germany.

He’ll know all about what Dier’s been up to in Germany because that’s where the England manager is spending all his time, isn’t it? Because of woke.

James Tarkowski (Everton)

Earned two caps in 2018 while still at Burnley, one before the World Cup in March and one in September. Was among the standby players for Russia 2018 but wasn’t required, and was last seen in an England squad six years ago.

But has to be a live chance now. The headline-grabbing brilliance of both the technique and timing of his equaliser against Liverpool has thrust him into a rare spotlight, but of greater significance has been his towering presence in an Everton defence that had become rock-solid even before the current Moyes Bounce, after an admittedly disastrous opening month to the season.

Tarkowski has seen it all with Everton this season, having played all but eight minutes of their topsy-turvy Premier League campaign and, while he may not have the international thoroughbred vibe of a Jarrad Branthwaite, he absolutely has solid claims on another chance with England.

Oh and he does a good swear.

Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa)

Only qualifies for this list by virtue of a harrowing long-running injury nightmare, having before that become one of the more established members of England’s rotating Maguire-and-Stones-back-up support crew at centre-back.

Has been easing his way back to where he belongs at the heart of Villa’s defence over the last couple of months and his importance is already being highlighted. Since his comeback in December against Brentford, Mings has played a significant part – an hour or more – in eight games and a bit-part or nothing at all in seven.

In the eight games he’s figured prominently, Villa have four wins and four draws (including against both Liverpool and Arsenal) and conceded 10 goals. In the seven games without significant Mings, Villa have two wins, a draw and four defeats with 13 goals conceded.

Alas, the very fact he remains in and out of the side in this way tells its own story of just how tough recovery from his knee injuries has been, and the fact he limped off after an hour of the win over Chelsea at the weekend is its own concern. He duly missed the 4-1 defeat at Palace, but the fact he was on the bench gives hope that any setback has not been a serious one.

Villa may very understandably prefer the idea of Mings getting rest and continuing his rehab with them during the international break, but all things being equal he’d be hard to ignore for the new England manager.

Archie Gray (Tottenham Hotspur Or Spurs)

At the very opposite end of Tuchel’s potential centre-back solutions from the 30-something Dier, Tarkowski and Mings sits Tottenham teenager and one of the season’s real surprise packages Archie Gray.

The surprise is not that he’s shown himself to be perfectly capable of stepping up to Premier League class – anyone who watched him for Leeds last season will have strongly suspected as much.

The surprise has been that he has done so in a stinking bin fire of a Tottenham season in which the youngster has been forced to play almost everywhere other than his preferred midfield role.

We knew he could adequately fill in at full-back when required but the maturity and poise with which he’s handled himself as an emergency centre-back has been truly impressive.

His future for both club and country surely lies further forward. England aren’t currently in desperate need for a long-term replacement for 26-year-old Declan Rice, but there’s a good chance that they’ve already got one in north London and that if/when Tottenham regain even the vaguest sense of equilibrium he will swiftly prove as much.

For now, and given the very specific parameters of Tuchel’s job spec, Gray probably remains with the U21s, and that’s fair enough. But he’s absolutely placed himself in the conversation having established himself as one of the key beneficiaries of Spurs’ season of crisitunity.

Max Kilman (West Ham)

Between the 30-somethings and teenagers sits an as-yet-unused England centre-back contender who could perhaps have done without West Ham being so very crap for such hefty chunks of the season.

But having famously futsaled his way out of a possible full international career with Ukraine, the 27-year-old might just be in the right place at the right time for Tuchel’s task.

Liam Delap (Ipswich)

Full list of English strikers with more Premier League goals this season than Liam Delap:

Ollie Watkins

End of list

Reaching double figures as the figurehead of the attack for a relegation-haunted side like Ipswich would be a solid effort for an established striker, and is even more impressive for a 22-year-old in his first season as a proper Premier League player.

Again, the narrowly specific nature of Tuchel’s England role may mean Delap has to wait for his chance but he has absolutely ensured he will be a point of discussion. Ipswich may have dwindling hopes of being in the Premier League next season, but it’s impossible to imagine Delap won’t be back in there somewhere.

At some point in the relatively near future the Harry Kane Era will come to an end for England and none of the other contenders for the job – Watkins, Dominic Solanke, er… – are long-term ones.

Delap sits alone in a very bare cupboard, which doesn’t sound very pleasant but does offer him a tantalising opportunity in the years ahead. But probably not quite yet.

Jadon Sancho (Chelsea)

Has he done quite enough with Chelsea to merit a return from the international wilderness? Probably not, but there’s also probably nobody in the country happier to see a German in charge of the England national team than Jadon.

And as a general rule, sitting right at the opposite end to The Sun and the Daily Mail is the correct place to be on any spectrum.

The case remains a flimsy one given the array of options England still possess behind and around the central striker, but Sancho is playing regularly and has a new manager who knows what he’s capable of. For a 24-year-old who won the last of his 23 caps as a 21-year-old, it’s something at least.

Omari Hutchinson (Ipswich)

Might be small-sample-size bias at play, but whenever I’ve watched Ipswich this season Hutchinson has stood out as their best player. We already know that Part-time Tuchel can’t even be bothered to watch any live matches, so maybe the England manager has stumbled upon the same conclusion.

Hutchinson does have two friendly caps for Jamaica, but does now appear to have committed himself to a proper crack at an England career.

Elliott Anderson (Nottingham Forest)

Another player with decisions to make over his international future, and it does appear that despite Scotland’s best, concerted and extended efforts to lure him back into their set-up, the Forest midfielder has decided England is the way to go.

As we keep saying, Tuchel’s England remit is not one built on long-term planning and foundation-building, but it still might be a good idea to get Anderson locked in after his key role in Forest’s unlikely tilt at Champions League qualification. And the fact central midfield remains an area of some uncertainty for England with Declan Rice the only absolute certainty in there.

Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard “hasn’t been good enough since coming back from injury”, according to former Premier League striker Darren Bent.

Odegaard missed 12 matches with an ankle injury earlier this season, with Mikel Arteta forced to experiment with Leandro Trossard in midfield in his absence.

Arsenal only won three of seven Premier League matches without the Norwegian playmaker. Since his return, they had been on a 15-game unbeaten run in the top flight until losing at home to West Ham on Saturday.

Despite the unbeaten run – which consisted of five draws and 10 wins – Odegaard has been nowhere near his best.

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He has only scored three goals and made six assists in 27 appearances across all competitions this season and has been unable to turn draws into wins like he has for the last two seasons.

His lack of form has resulted in the Gunners falling 11 points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool.

Arne Slot’s men have one hand on the trophy after beating Manchester City at the Etihad a day after the Hammers earned a shock win against Arsenal.

Arteta will need his captain to step things up if Arsenal are to close the gap on the Reds and Odegaard has been called out by former Tottenham Hotspur striker Darren Bent – who is a Gunners supporter.

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Bent says Odegaard was “appalling” in the defeat to West Ham and has criticised his performances since returning from injury in November.

“He was appalling against West Ham,” Bent told talkSPORT. “He hasn’t been good since coming back from injury.

“He had a little flirt where he looked like he might be back but two Premier League goals this season, three in total.

“His performances haven’t been good enough.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s a wonderful footballer but there’s too much flicks and these little scoop passes, just shoot!”

Arsenal are back in action away to Nottingham Forest on Wednesday night. Liverpool, meanwhile, host Newcastle United.

Speaking ahead of the trip to the City Ground, Arteta refused to rule his team out of the title race.

He said: “It was a very disappointing weekend. The previous 15 games we had won 10 and drawn five – exactly the same as Liverpool with exactly the same goal difference.

“So we have been extremely consistent over the last three months considering everything we have been through. We have generated that momentum and it was that weekend where we have to go again but we got a defeat. On top of that they [Liverpool] win.

“When you are trying to beat that momentum and we put so much into it with the circumstances that we have, it was a really hard one to take. The reality is there are so many games to play and you have to get back to it.”

Arteta also said “over my dead body” when asked if he will give up on winning the league.

He continued: “If not I will go home. Mathematically it is possible.

“You are there, you have to play every game, suddenly three days ago we could close a gap and you are like ‘you are one-and-a-half games away’. It doesn’t matter, we have to continue to go.

“The difficulty is higher than three days about but if you are going to win the Premier League you have to do something special. If you are going to win the Premier League with the circumstances we have you will probably have to do something that nobody else has done in the history of the Premier League.”

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou has revealed four of his players are set to return from injury in the “next seven to 10 days”.

Spurs have endured a difficult season as they have plunged into the bottom half of the Premier League table amid a severe injury crisis.

Their form has picked up in recent weeks as they have won three Premier League games in a row but Postecoglou remains one of the favourites to be the next manager sacked.

Postecoglou has been heavily criticised following Tottenham’s exits from the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, but they are looking up ahead of their Premier League match against Man City on Wednesday night.

Ahead of this match, the Aussie head coach has confirmed that they do not have any more injury fears following their 4-1 win against Ipswich Town on Saturday.

“Everyone who played [against Ipswich at the weekend] got through really well, and it will be a similar sort of squad for tomorrow,” Postecoglou confirmed.

READ: Big Midweek: Tottenham v Man City, Mo Salah, Man United, Arteta, Barcelona v Atletico Madrid

Defender Ben Davies will miss Wednesday night’s match against Man City but Postecoglou said Richarlison, Cristian Romero, Dominic Solanke and Micky van de Ven are “all tracking really well” with returns targeted for the “next seven to 10 days.”

Postecoglou has also reserved praise for Rodrigo Bentancur, who is “getting back to the levels he wants to be at”.

“Rodri has been great. In terms of his contract situation, that is handled by other people. In this later period, he is really getting back to the levels he wants to be at,” Postecoglou said.

“He just needs regular game time and he is getting up to speed. Really good guy around the group and he’s experienced now. From our perspective, in this run in, he’s going to be really important.”

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On Brennan Johnson, he added: “Brennan Johnson is really good for us. We don’t really have another front third player like him”.

On Man City, he said: “You’re always looking forward to the challenge. Manchester City are an outstanding football club, great manager, still got great footballers and still play really challenging football to any opponent.

“We’ve enjoyed our games against them, whether that was this year or last year.

“They’re going to try and win, they’re going to try and play expansively and we are going to try and do the same. It’s going to be a good test for us.”

Tottenham have made an offer for Inter Milan midfielder Davide Frattesi ahead of the summer transfer window, according to reports.

Spurs are having a poor season in the Premier League with Ange Postecoglou’s side currently 12th in the table after 26 matches.

After pressure on Postecoglou in recent weeks over poor results, back-to-back wins in the Premier League against Manchester United and Ipswich Town have Tottenham upwardly mobile again.

Postecoglou has had as many as 11 first-team players unavailable in recent weeks and the Tottenham board have been understanding of his situation, despite claims that their injury list is partly down to the Australian working his players too hard in training.

Widespread reports point to Spurs sticking with Postecoglou and they are already planning for the summer transfer window.

Italian website Inter Live claim that Tottenham have put €30m (£25m) ‘on the table’ for Inter Milan midfielder Frattesi with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy rekindling their interest from last summer.

The report adds:

‘The list of departures is full of illustrious names, to which more than a few surprises could be added. Because faced with the right proposal, other big names risk packing their bags and leaving: one in particular, already close to leaving months ago, could actually definitively say goodbye to the Nerazzurri colors.

‘In January, the management of Viale della Liberazione moved by doing the bare minimum, aware that currently without exits of a certain weight it is not conceivable to incorporate important names into Inzaghi’s squad. One of the profiles that was very close to leaving the Nerazzurri is that of Davide Frattesi.’

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Giving more detail of Tottenham’s current interest, Inter Live continues:

‘Postecoglou’s Tottenham, already last summer, had tried to bring Frattesi to England, trying to convince Inter to sell him. Now the rekindling of the flame is practically around the corner and Marotta could end up selling the player.

’30 million euros on the table for a farewell that would replenish the Nerazzurri coffers and that – together with the probable one of Asllani – would lead to a real revolution in Inzaghi’s midfield. Frattesi remains under contract with Inter until June 30, 2028 : a long deadline that will allow the management of Viale della Liberazione, eventually, to try to cash in as much as possible.

‘Everything or almost everything will depend on the will of the player who – as anticipated – in January seemed inclined to say goodbye. Then the about-face: close the season in the best way with Inter, perhaps with a new Scudetto on his chest, before evaluating what to do. We’ll see but in the meantime the ‘Spurs’, hunting for a weighty midfielder, keep Davide Frattesi in their sights.’

An absolutely cracking set of midweek Premier League fixtures to enjoy this week, with several games looking well worth your time and a schedule that offers potential to see at least bits and pieces of all of them.

Game to watch: Tottenham v Man City

Look, the (relatively) boring/correct answer is probably Liverpool v Newcastle, but we’re not about to advise any neutral to dodge the guaranteed nonsense that comes with a Spurs-Man City encounter.

The only certainty in any game between these two is that nothing is certain, and this one is even less certain than normal. Which is very uncertain indeed.

Spurs have got themselves out of what appeared to be a growing relegation pickle with three straight league wins, while Man City are still the team we’ve had to try and come to understand this season; thrashing Newcastle one week, folding meekly to Liverpool the next.

And that Spurs run only makes us even less certain of what comes next. Had they lost at Ipswich at the weekend, as narrative surely demanded they should, then we’d be extremely confident they would now beat City.

Even at their all-conquering best, City had an infamous and inexplicable weak spot when it came to Spurs and it’s never really mattered that much whether Spurs were any good or not at the time, or even who the manager was.

Spurs have already beaten City twice this season and are gunning for a sixth win out of six against the Manchester clubs this season. Given where Spurs’ own season is, you have to concede that’s quite funny.

Oh, and if for some reason you aren’t irresistibly fascinated by what precise concoction these two have got in store for us, then remember that this is a TNT takeover week with all games live and thus you can deploy what we like to call The Amazon System anyway.

On Wednesday night, that means the following (assuming of course that your own team isn’t also playing): At 7.30pm, you settle in for the first half of Spurs v City before switching over at half-time for the early stages of Liverpool v Newcastle.

Fifteen minutes into that one you’ve got a decision to make and here we can only advise to go with your heart. Either way, when it’s half-time at Anfield you’re back for the final stages of Spurs-City before getting back to the conclusion of Liverpool-Newcastle.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. It’s mad that we put up with not having this option for close to 30 years of pay TV, and mad that we still consider it a lovely occasional treat rather than something we should get all the bloody time for what we fork out.

READ: Premier League winners and losers: Liverpool (and Newcastle, and Villa, and Spurs) enjoy

Player to watch: Mo Salah

Sometimes we try to be interesting here, and sometimes we’re running out of time at the end of a long day, okay?

There is one player with more than 20 Premier League goals this season, and one player with more than 15 Premier League assists this season, and Mo Salah is both of those players.

He is currently six clear of his nearest challengers in both golden boot and playmaker awards this season, in a team that is 11 points clear at the top of the table. It’s a pretty good season.

And Newcastle are just one of the many, many teams Salah seems to enjoy playing. He’s got 17 Premier League goal involvements against them (10 goals, seven assists); only against Man United has he managed more.

Here are all his ridiculous stats.

Team to watch: Manchester United

A full TV programme of midweek loveliness obviously leaves us spoiled for choice here, but we’re going to look here for the option with greatest chance of hilarity.

All credit to Chelsea for being so bad recently that their home game with Southampton comes into contention here, but it’s surely impossible to resist the charms of Manchester United against Ipswich in the catastrophe potential stakes here.

For one thing, Ipswich have proof of concept when it comes to rocking up at a pratfalling Big Six club and pulling their pants down having won at Spurs earlier in the season, and they got a deserved point against United earlier in the season at Portman Road in Ruben Amorim’s first game in charge when he hadn’t realised at all what he’d let himself in for and may have quite reasonably have believed that a post-match interview being gatecrashed by Ed Sheeran was as bad as it would get.

Ipswich’s own form is deeply forlorn, but this might represent their last chance to turn the relegation fight into something meaningful. Especially if Wolves have beaten Fulham 24 hours earlier.

Manager to watch: Mikel Arteta

So… what now? It’s not exactly his fault that he was left short in January, and he’s been clear about his frustrations.

But this is the hand he’s been dealt and he’s going to have to come up with a solution of some kind or other and, to the collective disappointment of a weary nation, it does look like Merino Fellaini might be a thing that only works against Leicester.

He can’t just shrug and give up, though. He’s got to come up with something more compelling than ‘Wait for Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli to come back’. The lack of threat Arsenal posed against West Ham at the weekend was stark, and it only feels like the very slightest of exaggerations to note that a defeat at Forest would leave Arsenal in a position of looking nervously down rather than hopefully up.

The good news for Arsenal, and it does feel like they could do with some, is that this doesn’t seem to be the worst time to run into a Forest side that has been teak tough for most of the season but has suddenly leaked 11 goals – a third of their overall total for the season – during a run of three defeats in four games.

The other game in that run was a 7-0 win, but don’t worry about that right now. The point is that Arsenal and Arteta are running into a team that are currently there to be got at if the Gunners can just find a way.

Football League game to watch: Bromley v Bradford

Bradford are one of a trio of League Two clubs along with AFC Wimbledon and Notts County on 57 points from 32 games in and around the automatic promotion places. While Walsall appear to be heading over the horizon and into the promised land of League One, the battle for the remaining automatic spots is hotting up nicely.

Throw second-placed Doncaster (58 points from 33) and sixth-placed Port Vale (55 from 31) in with our 57 varieties and you’ve got yourself a compelling promotion battle that none of them appear capable of truly grabbing by the scruff of the neck and putting to bed early.

And the Football League’s newest club, Bromley, still have possibilities of their own with a three-game winning run keeping them in sight of a play-off spot in their first ever season of league football.

European game to watch: Barcelona v Atletico Madrid

Plenty of lovely cup action to get into around the continent this week, but hard to beat this Copa del Rey semi-final first leg between two of the three teams currently separated by a mere point after 25 games of a La Liga title fight for the ages.

The Copa del Rey undeniably features some way down the list of priorities for a pair of teams who also have Champions League last-16 ties to prepare for, with Atleti in particular facing a daunting upcoming fixture list.

Between this week’s first leg against Barcelona and the second they will play fourth-placed Athletic Bilbao as well as Barcelona in La Liga to go with both legs of that Champions League scrap with local rivals Real Madrid.

Tottenham Hotspur legend Glenn Hoddle has offered his thoughts on whether his former club should sack head coach Ange Postecoglou.

Postecoglou has fallen from the top spot in the race to be the next Premier League manager sacked.

The Spurs head coach has been under immense pressure for most of this season as they have languished in the bottom half of the Premier League table. However, they are ninth in our form table after winning three games in a row.

Tottenham have dealt with a major injury crisis this season but their top performers are gradually returning and they have beat Brentford, Manchester United and Ipswich Town in their last three Premier League matches.

Postecoglou has refused to alter his style and has been forced to use players out of position and they are eleven points adrift of fourth-placed Manchester City.

READ: Premier League prize money calculated after Arsenal missed out on record payment in 2023/24

Hoddle claims he has “every sympathy” for Postecoglou but has “only” one “question” about the head coach’s ‘mistake’.

“I think he needs more time because as a manager I have every sympathy for him,” Hoddle told The Mirror.

“The amount of injuries, the long-term injuries to key players. You can have injuries, but if they’re to key experienced players and they’re long-term injuries and you get nine, ten or 11.

“If Liverpool had that many, they wouldn’t be top of the league. It affects performances, there’s no doubt about it.

“My only question mark from my football head – if you haven’t got your strongest team, then slightly adjust things so the team you’re putting out has got more of a chance of not conceding goals. Make it more difficult for your opponent, mainly on the defensive side.”

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“To play the same way as if you’ve got Romero and Van de Ven doesn’t make sense to me. Those players who have had to play, like Archie Gray, are at full throttle. There have just been adjustments that have been needed at times and I think we would have had more points on the board.

“We look too open. We look too easy to play against. We can create but we also look so so vulnerable against any team. I’ve seen in in Europe. We lost to Ipswich.

“We look like you could always say ‘we can score goals against Tottenham’. Without Van de Ven and Romero, you’ve got to play differently.”

When asked for his verdict on Postecoglou getting sacked, he delivered his blunt verdict: “As for sacking him, no way. I think he’s got to be given another opportunity in the summer window. When Ange arrived, it was hallelujah. Fans wanted that style of football.”