Inside Futbol

Former Premier League defender Scott Minto was left disappointed with an early substitution made by Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou against Qarabag.

Spurs’ Europa League opener against the team from Azerbaijan was delayed and only kicked off at 20:35 on Thursday night.

There was early drama as Spurs defender Radu Dragusin was sent off just eight minutes into the game and then Brennan Johnson scored just minutes later.

Postecoglou reacted to the sending off by bringing off Lucas Bergvall and bringing on Destiny Udogie, making Tottenham more defensively solid.

That decision disappointed Minto, who was looking forward to seeing the Swedish midfielder in action, especially after his outing in the EFL Cup against Coventry City.

“You know what, it’s a real, real shame”, Minto said on talkSPORT 2.

“I was really looking forward to seeing him play.

“We know the talent he has, how well he played in that Coventry game in what was very difficult circumstances in that players around him that are more senior than him weren’t playing very well.

“He didn’t even get a chance to touch the ball very much in the first ten, eleven minutes.”

There are high expectations attached to Bergvall, who snubbed the chance to join Barcelona to make the move to Tottenham.

The Swede will now be waiting to see when his next chance comes along.

Fixture: Tottenham Hotspur vs Qarabag

Competition: Europa League

Kick-off: 20:00 UK time

Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou has picked his starting eleven to entertain Qarabag in the Europa League at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this evening.

Postecoglou has eased some of the pressure on him of late and will now try to guide Spurs to a bright start in Europe.

Visitors Qarabag arrive sitting top of the Azerbaijani top flight, having won all five of their games so far.

They dropped into the Europa League after being knocked out in the Champions League qualifiers by Dinamo Zagreb.

Between the sticks this evening for Tottenham is Guglielmo Vicario, while the back four is Archie Gray, Radu Dragusin, Micky van de Ven and Ben Davies.

Midfield sees Postecoglou pick Yves Bissouma and Pape Matar Sarr, while Lucas Bergvall is also selected. Brennan Johnson and Heung-Min Son support Dominic Solanke.

If the Spurs boss wants to try to influence the game with his substitutes he has options available and they include Pedro Porro and Timo Werner.

Tottenham Hotspur Team vs Qarabag

Vicario, Gray, Dragusin, Van de Ven, Davies, Bissouma, Sarr, Bergvall, Johnson, Son, Solanke

Substitutes: Forster, Austin, Maddison, Udogie, Werner, Kulusevski, Porro, Bentancur, Lankshear, Moore

Tottenham Hotspur attacker Heung-min Son has drawn reference from his time with Manchester United legend Ruud van Nistelrooy to insist that he wants to be that go-to guy for his young team-mate Mikey Moore.

Moore was handed his senior debut by manager Ange Postecoglou, who introduced him in the 88th minute of the 3-1 win over Brentford, last weekend.

Being an academy product, Son insists that there is even more of a need to look after Moore as making the step up to play with the senior team can often be difficult for a youngster.

Son admits though that Moore is showing his personality in the senior squad and is also putting in the hard yards on the training pitch.

Giving his assessment of Moore, Son said at a press conference: “Yes, he’s a fantastic boy and obviously, I mean, he’s coming from the academy.

“You as a club, you look after him even more. Everybody is so welcoming and looking after him.

“So do I, because he’s such a lovely kid and working hard every single day, coming with the first team with that age it’s not easy, you know, like sometimes you’re very shy.

“But he’s showing good personality and working hard, which is very important to me.

“When you see the young players are working hard in the first team and you just want to help, you just want to help him.”

The Spurs attacker recalled his time as a young player at German side Hamburg, where he was taken under the wing of then veteran striker Van Nistelrooy.

“You know that as well when I was young, and now he’s coaching at Manchester United, Ruud van Nistelrooy, he was helping me a lot in my Hamburg time.

“Now I want to be that guy as well, you know, just having him around me and just talking about things,

“Because we are playing in a similar position that if I can help him a little bit with advice, then I’m always open to it.”

Son revealed that out of all the senior Spurs stars, Moore comes to him the most and that is something he likes.

“Mikey is also coming to me most of the times and asking questions, which is very fun. I enjoy talking to him.

“He’s a fantastic boy and then I’m definitely sure that he can be a fantastic player.

“There’s no doubt because he has such amazing quality.

“As we always say about young players, let’s don’t give him too much pressure on his shoulders.

“Just let’s enjoy how he develops, how he improves every single day, every single season and as a fan, as supporters, we should just enjoy watching him and he will be, I think, one of the top players.”

Son is now 32 years old and into his tenth season at Tottenham.

Having become the team’s talisman following the departure of Harry Kane, Son will be keen to do all he can to help Moore and the club’s other talents to fulfil their potential.

Qarabag boss Gurban Gurbanov believes that Tottenham Hotspur are now ‘more dynamic’ under Ange Postecoglou than was the case when his side last met Spurs in 2015.

The team from Azerbaijan are in London to take on Tottenham in what will be their first match of the new Europa League league phase campaign.

Tottenham as a team are not unknown to Qarabag given that they played the London-based club in 2015 in the same city and in the same competition.

On that occasion, Tottenham came away with a 3-1 win by virtue of a brace from Heung-min Son, while they also beat Qarabag in Azerbaijan.

Reflecting on that match, the Qarabag manager insisted that the current Tottenham team under Posetcoglou will be a different proposition as they are more dynamic and quick when it comes to pressing.

“I remember that match exactly. Yes, we lost 3-1”, Gurbanov said at a press conference while reflecting on the last meeting.

“At that time, Tottenham was a good team and had a good head coach. Today’s Tottenham is more dynamic.

“After the arrival of the new manager, they have become one of the fastest-pressing teams in the Premier League.

“They have a completely different game philosophy.”

Tottenham will hope to continue with their winning momentum from the Brentford game when they host Gurbanov’s team this evening.

We use cookies and data to

Deliver and maintain Google services

Track outages and protect against spam, fraud, and abuse

Measure audience engagement and site statistics to understand how our services are used and enhance the quality of those services

If you choose to “Accept all,” we will also use cookies and data to

Develop and improve new services

Deliver and measure the effectiveness of ads

Show personalized content, depending on your settings

Show personalized ads, depending on your settings

If you choose to “Reject all,” we will not use cookies for these additional purposes.

Non-personalized content is influenced by things like the content you’re currently viewing, activity in your active Search session, and your location. Non-personalized ads are influenced by the content you’re currently viewing and your general location. Personalized content and ads can also include more relevant results, recommendations, and tailored ads based on past activity from this browser, like previous Google searches. We also use cookies and data to tailor the experience to be age-appropriate, if relevant.

Select “More options” to see additional information, including details about managing your privacy settings. You can also visit g.co/privacytools at any time.

Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy has revealed that Spurs will end inevitably up with a young team because developing players from the youth academy and seeing them establish themselves as first-team players makes them feel like they are very close to the club.

Ange Postecoglou focused more on signing young players in the most recent transfer window as the likes of Archie Gray, Wilson Odobert and Lucas Bergvall joined the ranks in north London.

A deal for South Korean prospect Min-hyeok Yang has also been agreed with Gangwon, but he will join Spurs only in January.

Besides them, there is a plethora of young talents in Tottenham’s youth academy and they are considered top players for the future.

Levy reiterated that Spurs fans want to see youth players being promoted to the first team and he feels that seeing a youth player progress feels more organic, which is why Spurs will end up with a younger squad.

He stressed that Postecoglou though is not being told to only sign younger players.

“Our view is we want to play a certain way. I don’t think we’re dictating to Ange that he can only sign a young player. He will sign who he feels is best for his team”, Levy was quoted as saying by football.london.

“Obviously we feel that bringing young players through the academy is what Spurs fans want to see.

“That’s why we’re going to be putting more resources into the academy because we love seeing a player come all the way through and he’s one of our own.

“As a result of that, we’ll end up probably being younger than we otherwise would be.”

The likes of Tyrese Hall and Will Lankshear were in heavy demand by some lower-league clubs but Spurs chose to keep them and develop them within their academy.

Postecoglou and the Spurs chiefs will be keeping a close eye on the young players’ development to help them slowly integrate into the first team.

Qarabarg president Tahir Gozel has warned Tottenham Hotspur that his team will fight on the pitch until the end when they take on Spurs in the Europa League later this week.

Spurs are finally back to winning ways after they edged past Coventry City in the EFL Cup and beat Brentford in a league clash at the weekend.

They are now set to start their European journey in the Europa League and they will host Azerbaijan outfit Qarabarg in London on Thursday night.

Horsemen president Gozel is delighted that his side are once again in the main stage of the Europa League.

“For the eleventh time in a row, our team will compete in the main stage of the Europa League”, Gozel told his club’s in-house media.

“Our first game will be held in England, which is considered the birthplace of football.”

He insists Spurs is one of the favourites to win the whole competition but he is not ready to stop believing in his team getting a result and warned that they will fight until the very end.

“No one doubts that the strongest football league in the world is the English Premier League.

“In this competition, we will face a well-known opponent who can speak for themselves.

“Tottenham are considered one of the favourites not only for the match but also for the Europa League as a whole.

“But I believe in every player of my team, every member of the squad.

“They have always fought like heroes in meetings with such strong opponents.

“Regardless of the outcome of the meeting in London, I believe that our players will fight on the field and fight until the end.”

Spurs will be looking to start their European journey this season by capturing all three points against the Azerbaijani outfit.

Exeter City goalkeeper Shaun MacDonald has stressed that his side’s opponents in the EFL Trophy, Tottenham Hotspur Under-21s, are supposed to have some of the top talents in the entire country.

Ange Postecoglou has been able to push away some of the criticism he received after beating Brentford last weekend, but Spurs Under-21s side have not made a convincing start to their Premier League 2 campaign.

They have won only one of their first four matches, but have a golden opportunity to return to winning ways tonight when they face Exeter City in the EFL Trophy.

The likes of Will Lankshear, Aflie Dorrington and Tyrese Hall are considered top talents at Spurs and Exeter goalkeeper MacDonald is looking forward to facing them.

MacDonald stressed that the Spurs starlets are supposed to be some of the best prospects in the entire country and so while Exeter will have an age advantage, the opponents cannot be underestimated.

“In terms of age and youth, they [Spurs Under-21s] will be younger than us”, MacDonald said in a press conference before the Grecians face Spurs Under-21s tonight.

“But also these are meant to be some of the best young players in the country coming through.

“So again, age-wise, yes [we will be older].

“But ability wise no means, they will be a very good side.”

Now it remains to be seen if the talented and highly-rated Spurs youngsters will be able to see off the challenge from League One side Exeter City tonight.

Richard Keys insists referee John Brooks is off the hook for not spotting Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario handling the ball outside the box on Saturday.

Spurs made an initial shaky start to their campaign after picking up only one win from the first four games but they picked up their second win last weekend against Brentford to move tenth in the league table.

Last week there were some controversial and criticised refereeing decision from the Premier League and Vicario not getting a pulled up for handling the ball outside his technical area was one of them.

Keys stressed that the Spurs shot-stopped did not stop a goalscoring chance from Brentford so the VAR officials could not get involved in the matter.

He reiterated that Brooks got out of trouble for not spotting the Spurs goalkeeper’s offence against the Bees.

“There was a lot of confusion as to why Tottenham’s Vicario wasn’t sent off for handling outside the box”, Keys wrote on his latest blog about the Spurs custodian.

“I’m not convinced John Brooks saw the offence as Vicario got himself into a real mess, juggling the ball on the edge of his box, but it didn’t matter.

“The first two times the keeper touched the ball he was inside his area.

“The third time he wasn’t, but it wasn’t a red card offence.

“It would’ve been if Vicario had denied Brentford a clear and obvious scoring attempt, but that wasn’t the case – so VAR couldn’t get involved and Brooks was off the hook.”

Vicario’s lack of bravery to come for crosses has been heavily criticised and a red card for handling the ball outside the box could have been extremely damaging.

Former Premier League midfielder Danny Murphy has labelled a Tottenham Hotspur star ‘always brave’ and feels he often ‘takes responsibility’ within games.

Spurs eased some of the pressure on Ange Postecoglou on Saturday by beating Brentford 3-1 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the Premier League.

Goals for the hosts came from Dominic Solanke, Brennan Johnson and James Maddison as they had too much for the Bees.

Ex-top flight midfielder Murphy, who knows the demands of playing for Tottenham Hotspur, believes goalscorer Maddison has started the season well.

He noted that Postecoglou is using Maddison in a deeper role and feels he was outstanding against Brentford.

Murphy insists that Maddison is ‘always brave’ and is able to get Spurs on the attack so often because he ‘takes responsibility’.

“In this deeper role that Postecoglou has put him in, with [Dejan] Kulusevski ahead of him, he was absolutely outstanding”, Murphy said on the BBC’s Match of the Day.

“He’s always brave.

“He goes and gets the ball under pressure and he is always positive with his passing.

“So many times he sets them on the attack because he takes responsibility”, he added.

Maddison will want to keep his form going this week as Spurs will want to kick off their Europa League league stage campaign by taking all three points against Qarabag.