Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou wont change philosophy regardless of circumstances ahead of their clash with Wolves
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00:00 You said you were never going to ostracise anyone, you potentially could have left them
00:07 to decide.
00:08 Is this exactly why and how impressive are you by this?
00:09 Yeah look I don't feel the need to, I think irrespective of a player's individual situation
00:16 and they're all in different situations, unless a player expressly says to me or desires that
00:22 he wants to leave and I kind of know his head's spaced somewhere else, I don't see any reason
00:26 for separating from the group because they're part of our football club and Eric's been
00:30 part of this football club for a very long time and every day again he's another one
00:34 who's just trained hard, he hasn't had a lot of opportunities as you said but that's because
00:38 we've been pretty settled in terms of our back form, we haven't had the need to put
00:43 him in there but he's always been ready to be called up and now he gets the opportunity.
00:50 I thought he did well the other night, it was a hard game to come into because firstly
00:55 he's come on with 10 men and he's had to play with 9 men and as a defender there's going
01:00 to be some challenges there but I thought he handled it really well and just his experience
01:06 I think will be important for us, particularly with Micky's absence and obviously Romero
01:13 being out for three games, just his experience at this level I think will be important to
01:17 us.
01:18 He's got an amazing experience, Ashley Phillips, obviously hasn't made his debut yet but probably
01:25 thought he's someone you'd consider bringing in, do you think he'd be ready to start?
01:29 Look again Ash is part of the first team, he trains every day, he's available for selection,
01:35 if he gets an opportunity then it'll be up to him, I'm not going to manufacture things
01:40 for people, everything they get they earn and if they're selected they're selected because
01:44 I think they can help us win, if they're not selected they've got to just keep working
01:47 hard and wait for their opportunity.
01:48 How do you go about replacing what he's given to the team, is it something you hope will
01:49 be done with one player or do you think it's two systems?
02:03 Yeah look I don't think you can replace, but I've said that before, I think the system
02:08 kind of adjusts to the individuals within it and we didn't create a system for Madders,
02:14 we had a system for Madders fit into that and he brought his own qualities to it, obviously
02:19 whoever we bring into a place isn't going to be the same player, it's a different player
02:24 so he's going to bring different qualities to it, but it won't change our overall structure
02:28 or intent in the way we want to play, it's just there's going to be some variances in
02:32 there because of the nature of a different player being in there.
02:37 I'm just disappointed for Madders because I think he's had an unbelievable start to
02:41 the season, he's probably been one of the best players in the whole competition and
02:45 I know he's really looking forward to striving for more and disappointed for him that that's
02:55 been interrupted for the short term.
02:56 There's a lot of focus on some VAR and lots of things on Monday, but one thing maybe,
02:57 do you think the players were slightly over hyped in any way when two players sent off?
02:58 It doesn't seem like they were very much in control of the game the first ten minutes
02:59 of the game.
03:00 No, because I think they were just a bit overhyped.
03:01 I think the first 20 minutes I thought we were outstanding.
03:18 The Romero challenge wasn't a great challenge, he deserved to be a red card, he got a red
03:22 card.
03:23 Destiny, two yellow cards, the second one was a bit of a desperate lunge in, a little
03:29 bit of an experience, I don't think there was anything more than that, but again, he
03:32 deserved a red card.
03:33 You take your punishment and move on.
03:34 Just on the high line, there's been a lot of focus on that.
03:35 In that situation, such an extreme situation against the Magic, did you believe that was
03:36 the best way to get points, to get a draw or to win the game?
03:37 Or was it something you thought was important for the wider league for players in the Met
03:52 Group?
03:53 I don't try and lose games purposely, trust me.
03:56 I'm very much on trying to win a game of football.
04:07 It's slightly unconventional, that I kind of understand, but you don't get to Australia,
04:15 to the Premier League by being conventional.
04:18 Trust me, this is not the first time that people have questioned my madness.
04:25 It's got me to where I am and I'll continue to do it because I believe we can win that
04:29 way, not because of any other reason.
04:33 I think there were times on Monday night where we kind of went to an extreme length, only
04:38 because I think the players felt like that was our best way to stay in the game and try
04:44 and get the equaliser we needed.
04:46 There were some aspects of it which probably made it a little bit easier for Chelsea to
04:54 break through, but the flip side of that was I really like the players' mentality and
04:59 intent of they wanted to get back in the game trying to play our football rather than revert
05:04 to some other sort of methods which can work as well.
05:09 This is not the first time you've had three face-to-face adversities this season.
05:16 What are your thoughts on that?
05:19 My first test, yeah?
05:26 Losing the greatest ever player of this competition the day before the season starts, nah, piece
05:31 of cake.
05:32 We lost two players to almost season-ending injuries, don't worry about it.
05:36 Mate, there are tests all the time.
05:39 In my whole career I've figured out there's only two states of being as a manager.
05:42 You're either under siege or it's coming, right?
05:46 That's the only thing.
05:47 So I know, I'm well aware of kind of every day that nothing ever runs smooth.
05:52 There's always challenges out there.
05:54 What I try and do, I think I mentioned last week, is not change my state of being.
05:59 It is what it is, whatever the challenge is, and there's always challenges.
06:03 Hopefully I try and focus on what's most important.
06:07 The most important thing is we're still building a football club, trying to build a team to
06:10 be successful in an environment where people want to win and be ambitious.
06:14 It's not going to change from week to week depending on what's happening.
06:18 So yeah, this is a different challenge and we're going to have to deal with it.
06:22 Like I said, it's fairly extreme, even for a guy in my experience, that you lose five
06:26 sort of players in one game.
06:28 But hey, it is what it is.
06:30 But that doesn't mean that that's any easier than everything we've faced so far.
06:35 I think it's a little bit sort of being disrespectful to this group of players to say that everything's
06:41 gone their way because I reckon from the first game where we're Brentford away, we concede
06:52 a VAR penalty, their goal scorer has to come off after ten minutes at a difficult venue
06:58 that they fought their way back to get something out of it.
07:00 I think there's been from day one a real resilience in the group and character.
07:04 They're going to have to show it again but I think the evidence is it's already there.
07:08 Do you think you're in the stages?
07:11 I reckon I'm there now.
07:12 Yeah, I reckon I'm in amongst it.
07:15 Although I did win manager of the month so they should give me five minutes of it.
07:18 Grace, anyway.
07:19 Next, Tom.
07:21 And given that under every first league defeat and obviously the nature of the defeats as
07:26 well, not a kind of scoreline on your team, crazy game, which you've obviously mentioned
07:30 already, how important is it for not just the confidence of your players but also the
07:34 complexion of the top of the league table that you can get back to winning ways tomorrow
07:39 and none of these defeats can sign to a flip on their own?
07:43 Yeah, well you're making a lot of assumptions there that that's kind of been driving us
07:47 so far and hasn't been our position on the ladder.
07:50 Our unbeaten record is not what's been driving us.
07:53 What's been driving us is trying to improve our performances, trying to be really consistent
08:00 in the way we play our football.
08:03 The other night there was plenty of evidence that we were still doing that so that's where
08:06 our focus is.
08:07 We've just got to keep playing our football and trying to improve as a team, trying to
08:15 embed all of the stuff we need to make us strong for all the challenges ahead.
08:22 It's no different tomorrow irrespective of what happened last week, whether we won, lost
08:25 or drew or our position on the table.
08:28 What's more important is, like we said, we keep playing our football and trying to improve
08:33 those areas.
08:35 James and then finish with George please.
08:37 Just to clarify one thing, do either of the two players, Micky or James Madison, do they
08:42 need an operation?
08:43 No, no.
08:44 There's no chance of that, it's just a recovery?
08:46 No.
08:47 Okay, finish with George please.
08:49 Hey bud.
08:51 Obviously, Carvio and Levy and the sweep keep rolling quite a little bit, it's a former
08:55 couple, we haven't seen it as much maybe because of Micky's recovery pace.
08:59 But he did it really well for the last part of Monday.
09:02 Is that something you will see a bit more now too because Micky's recovery pace is so
09:07 extreme?
09:08 No, not necessarily.
09:11 Like I said, we spoke about it last game that we felt Vic was probably going to have to
09:19 be more aggressive in his positioning in the second half with what we were trying to do.
09:23 So he kind of started off in a higher position than normal.
09:25 But, you know, again, 11 v 11, I don't expect it to be too much of a difference from what
09:31 he's done so far.
09:32 But like I said, he does have the capacity to do that and it's one of the attractions
09:37 I had because it does become important when you want to be aggressive with your line that
09:41 you have a keeper who's not hesitant in coming off.
09:44 But, you know, like I said, we did speak about it at half-time that we felt like we wanted
09:50 to be aggressive with our line.
09:52 And being a man down and knowing how Chelsea would set up, that there's going to be some
09:57 fair opportunity that he would have to be ready for that.
10:00 And I thought it was outstanding on Monday night.
10:04 It was brilliant.
10:05 Not just with his goalkeeping, just his whole mentality of really, you know, at times, you
10:11 know, being a one man defence, what was coming to him.
10:16 And I thought it was, yeah, I thought it was outstanding.
10:21 With all these injuries and also the fact that Monday's a Saturday and the keep-off
10:25 is quite short here, there's a lot of reasons and arguably excuses for Tottenham to drop
10:30 off tomorrow.
10:31 For you, is there no excuse?
10:33 How do you see yourself?
10:34 Well, to be fair, like I said, we've had plenty of excuses already we could have used.
10:39 You know, and I know, you know, it seems people seem to think that it's been a fairly smooth
10:46 ride so far, but you know, I can assure you it hasn't been.
10:50 We've had plenty of reasons not to be where we are.
10:53 Plenty of excuses in terms of, you know, the disruptions we've had already and some of
10:58 the challenges we've had to face.
10:59 And, you know, fair to say that we won't be using any kind of reason for us not to perform
11:06 at our best tomorrow.
11:07 You know, we're a tough opponent.
11:09 Wolves are a very good side.
11:11 I think Gary O'Neill is an outstanding young manager and we're going to get really tested,
11:17 but we've been tested in every game and it's up to us to sort of match that.
11:20 Thank you.
11:23 Thank you.
11:25 Thank you.
11:27 Thank you.
11:29 Thank you.
11:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]