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Ange Postecoglou believes Tottenham’s rejuvenated squad can sense an opportunity in the Europa League to make up for their disappointing season but confirmed that Dejan Kulusevski is set to be out until after the international break.
The defenders Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, and their record signing, Dominic Solanke, have all travelled to the Netherlands for the first leg against AZ Alkmaar on Thursday, with the Spurs manager set to make a late call on whether they will feature after extended periods on the sidelines.
But while Postecoglou revealed that Kulusevki has been nursing a foot problem for several weeks and will miss next week’s second leg in north London, he insisted that his returning players who have missed chunks of the campaign are determined to make up for lost time.
“I think it is fair to say the boys really understand there is a great opportunity for us,” he said. “I think they’ve appreciated the fact that the guys who have been playing through are now able to recover and train and prepare themselves better for games.
“That’s coincided with seeing their teammates come back and certainly the guys that have been out injured, we’ve already seen with guys like [Guglielmo Vicario], Brennan [Johnson], [James Maddison] to a lesser extent [due to time out] but Wilson [Odobert], Destiny [Udogie] – they’ve come back with a real hunger and desire to help the team because I think they’ve all been frustrated to sit on the sidelines and see how difficult it has been for the group of players who have been playing. They’ve just wanted to help and now they get that opportunity.”
Romero was called up by Argentina this week despite not having started a Premier League game since limping off against Chelsea at the start of December. He is in contention to start alongside Kevin Danso in central defence and the Austria international has talked up Tottenham’s chances of going all the way in this competition.
“A hundred per cent and I think it’s possible,” said Danso. “I said before the [Manchester] United game with the week of training that we had with some of the injured lads coming back – it was a lot of positive energy around the place and we ended up winning that game and keeping a clean sheet. It’s the same feeling now with Mickey and Cuti [Romero] back in the squad and everybody is wanting to finish the season strong.”
AZ beat Galatasaray 4-1 at home in the first leg of their playoff and reached the Dutch Cup final last week. The former Tottenham striker Troy Parrott, who moved to the Netherlands on a permanent deal last summer, missed a penalty in the semi-final shootout but has scored 17 goals in all competitions this season. The Republic of Ireland international insisted he has no regrets about leaving Spurs a few weeks after Postecoglou took over.
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“For me it just didn’t happen. I’m OK with that,” he said. “I’m here, I’m really enjoying myself, I love life over here. Now I’m just focusing on where I am right now and trying to progress and keep getting better here.”
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