Ange Postecoglou has spoken to the media to preview Sunday afternoon’s Premier League clash at home to Ipswich Town. After the defeat in the Europa League, ending this section of the season before the international break well will be very important.

Spurs could even overtake Arsenal having closed the gap to just two points following the win over Aston Villa. Yet, the humbling abroad will keep Postecoglou on this toes and his side too especially after the defeat to Crystal Palace provided a reality check against the sides towards the bottom of the table.

The Spurs boss was pressed on the latest team news. There were question marks on Cristian Romero, Timo Werner and Mikey Moore to be answered.

Here is every word Postecoglou had to say in his pre-match press conference at Hotspur Way:

Need a coffee how you feeling?

Yeah n my third so going all right!

How’s the squad from last night?

Yeah, look last night the brief I got after the game was everyone came through unscathed so there’s no issues from last night. Cristian, we’ll see how he goes the next couple of days, the idea is to try and get him out there and train and he’s pretty keen to so he has a chance for the weekend.

Mikey [Moore] probably still not right for the weekend, and probably Timo [Werner] as well. Really out of the ones who are out, only Cristian could be back.

How is Richarlison now, he looked so distraught last week?

He was very disappointed. I think I said in the lead up, we tried to take a different approach, he worked awfully hard on his rehab but also his general fitness. He’d really trimmed down in terms of his conditioning. He was doing everything right, we eased him back into playing we didn’t want to overload him and unfortunately he broke down again.

He’s disappointed but ultimately, we’ve just got to keep getting him back in there and work with him to get him back up because he’s an important player. You saw last week the impact he had coming off the bench and setting up the goal.

Disappointing for him, disappointing for us because we haven’t really had him at our disposal this year. But we’ll just keep working with Richy and try to get him back.

Richarlison timeline?

Not really. I’m reticent to put [a time on] it but he’ll be out for a significant amount of time. It’s a significant hamstring injury.”

When do you as a manager take a real look at the league table?

I think we have a hell of a long way to go. I think what’s important for us, as I said, just keep progressing, our football for the large part has been pretty consistent, pretty good.

We’ve obviously had a couple of stumbles along the way but I think within that context I still think we’re making progress and it’s what we’ll keep doing. There’s no point looking at the table now because ultimately its where you are at the end of the season, that’s going to count.

In Lloris’ book it talks about fourth being an achievement, do you have those discussions?

No look I, I haven’t read what Hugo’s said, it’s been mentioned to me. I think with these things you’ve got to put context around them and understand the broader view and that could have been a very successful period for the club.

They came very, very close. You’re talking about finishing runners-up in the Premier League and runners-up in the Champions League. It could have been a very different era and maybe in retrospect you be looking at those things.

It’s easy to focus on the negatives when the outcome is not what you want but there’s obviously a lot right at the time, from my perspective I’ve never allowed anyone else to dictate my ambitions, my aims, or what I try and do with everyone around me is you don’t put a limit on what you can achieve because if you do you potentially might miss something that comes along your way.

From the moment I started there has been a pretty clear brief about what we want to achieve. That’s kind of what we’re working towards.

On whether Micky Van de Ven will be back after the international break?

Yeah, it will be after the international break. When after will just dictate sort of his progress during that time. I think probably the end of the break will be four weeks, so when exactly after that we’ll have to wait and see.

In terms of Heung-min Son, do you feel he is now 100% back to his best fully fit and can play the full 90 minutes?

Yeah like I said, for Sonny where obviously he had the injury we brought him back, he kind of had a relapse and what we don’t want to do is put him back into that cycle. It’s very easy to fall into that cycle by pushing players, particularly when they’re coming back from injury.

Managing his minutes, building his up. He got a good 55 on the weekend, he got 45 last night. Yeah hopefully we can continue to build that up but ultimately for us its about getting him back and keeping him back because we cant afford any more injuries in that position.

We’ve already got Wilson [Odebert] with a long-term injury, and we’ve got a Richy with long-term issue. We’ve got Mikey out, we cant afford to lose a player in that area of the park so, I’ll always make decisions that I think are best for the club and for what we’re trying to achieve.

Ipswich will be desperate for a first win of the season?

Every league game has the potential to hurt you if you’re not at your best. Ipswich will be no different. They got close last week, I think they’ve been close in a number of games this season.

Kieran McKenna has done an unbelievable job since he’s been there and I think they continue to grow. It’s always harder for clubs who get promoted who haven’t gone down and got the benefit of parachute payments.

He’s got them competitive in just about every game this year which is a credit to him and his players. We’re expecting a tough one at the weekend, as we do every week, but our form particularly at home has been strong this year.

Open Premier League? Arsenal struggling, Forest third…

Yeah, fair to say there’s no one apart from Liverpool, I guess, who have hit real consistency. I guess some of it is on the back of some clubs having significant injuries, which will affect every team. Obviously, they’ve got stronger squads but as you saw with us last year you get hit by injuries in certain areas and it will affect you. So that’s part of it.

Other teams are showing some real consistency; Forest have been really, really good. Brighton have been good. So it feels more open, for us. You have to wait until you get further into the season to see how it pans out because any club that gets hit by injuries in a particular area could have the same kind of challenges that some of the top clubs are.

Number nines going out of fashion but Osimhen, Solanke impressed last night. Solanke in the top bracket?

Look, I get that we love a trend, particularly one that lasts as long as three weeks in the game. But we’ve got Lewandowski, we’ve got Harry Kane. There’s some pretty good strikers around the place. It’s a challenging position for sure. It always has been, because scoring goals in the most difficult thing to do. To play in that position you have to have a certain personality.

A really strong mindset. Because ultimately you never get a multitude of chances and that ability to forget what has happened before and focus on the next chance. When you get players like that, that’s why they’re worth their weight in goals. And I’ve left out a certain Haaland in that as well. We’re really happy with Dom.

Not just his goals but his general play. The way he’s come into the club, he’s become a bit of a leader on the field. Great for us, and I certainly believe there’s more in him. I’ve always liked to play with strikers. I’ve dabbled with false nines, only because I was bored for a season. But if you’ve got a good striker, you put him in your team.

How do you convince players not to put a limit on their ambitions?

That’s just a daily process, how you work on a daily basis. If your mindset every day is to come in and improve, well, how do you know where that’s going to take you? If you’re already putting a ceiling on that, or a target on that, then that ambition to improve every day kind of diminishes because you’ve got a set target. I’ve never believed in set targets. Like I said, if I had clear ambitions when I was coaching in Australia I probably would have surpassed them in my first two years of coaching.

So I see that in my own journey. And the players will be no different. You look at their own stories, where they started to where they are, I’m sure there were plenty of people along the way who told them they weren’t going to make it for one reason or another, but they’re here. So you should never limit what you do in life. That’s a daily process for me. That’s why I don’t talk about where we’re going to end up. What I talk about is: let’s be better today than we were yesterday and keep doing that. If that is a continual process, in time you’ll see where your limits are. Rather than pre-determine them, let them come to fruition after having the right mindset.”

Kulusevski in midfield?

No, not a specific moment. I think I’ve said before, I think with Deki, the way we get our wingers to play probably doesn’t suit him. Not his skillset, more I think his personality. He’s just a player who’s much more engaged in the game when he’s constantly involved. And bringing him to the central area means he’s constantly doing that. At times with us last year, when he was on the wing, with the way our wingers play, you’re not involved all the time, there’s a discipline in keeping your position.

Sometimes not receiving the ball is part of that process. We put our wingers where we do to pin back oppositions. I could see he was, not frustrated, he just wanted to give more. So obviously towards the back end of last year we played him inside a couple of times, you could see him growing into that. Certainly from the beginning of pre-season this year, it was always the intention to bring him inside and let him develop. And he has, and he’s improving, that’s the key thing. It’s not like he’s just gone inside, he’s actually working on his game, areas where he can hurt the opposition, working on the defensive side of his game, because it’s a little bit different to playing out on the wing. I think he’s enjoying, which obviously helps in terms of his own development.

Played there at Atalanta?

I looked at his background obviously, when he was growing up and when he first broke into the first team, that was his position. It’s not that he can’t play out wide, he got sort of put in that position because he was effective out there, when he played, particularly in teams that played counter-attacking football, which allowed him then the space to run at people.

I think you could see why he’d go out there. But some of it is just the natural development of players. There’s plenty of wide players who end up playing inside because their game develops and they understand more about it. I think he’s one of those.

How can he get better?

Like I said before, that’s exactly my point: just constant improvement in everything. There’s nothing he does that he can’t improve in. Deki, we’re talking about ambition, if you speak to him, he’s got pretty lofty ambitions for himself as a player, and what he can do. With that kind of mindset he can improve in all facets of his game. He’s already very, very effective for us. With and without the ball. The exciting bit is that I think there’s a lot more to come.

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