The good news is that there are no new injury concerns for Tottenham Hotspur ahead of their trip to St. James’ Stadium to face Newcastle on Saturday. The bad news is that Richarlison still won’t feature for Spurs. Ange Postecoglou confirmed in his weekly press conference ahead of the match that Richy is still coming back from a knee injury that has kept him out of action for a few weeks now, but that he’s hopeful that Richy will be available for Spurs’ compressed final run-in.
“[Richarlison] will miss this week. He is close but with next weekend off, the last two rounds are stacked with games and having him ready for that is more important.”
Can’t really argue too much with that reasoning. Although having him around would likely be useful against Newcastle this weekend, it’s much more important that he is available when Spurs play Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool in short succession. This is more or less like sitting an injured player ahead of an international break — a couple more weeks of healing is better than rushing him back, potentially before he’s ready.
There’s a lot of talk about Tottenham’s homegrown player quota right now, especially after Alasdair Gold’s recent article that casts doubt on Pape Sarr’s status as homegrown in both league and European competitions. (It’s worth noting here that Gold might not be correct about that.) Ange was asked specifically about Oliver Skipp, who featured during Spurs’ midfield injury crisis earlier in the season but hasn’t even sniffed the pitch for the past couple of months, and whether his homegrown status will play into his future at the club.
Ange’s response was, if you read between the lines, pretty illuminating.
“No, again we’re quite comfortable in [the homegrown player] situation as well. Decisions about individual players will all be made in the context of what’s good for the club and what’s good for the player and hopefully there’s some sort of alignment there. Sometimes there isn’t. From our perspective we’re comfortable that with the squad we have we’ll make decisions that are going to be beneficial for us in terms of our growth. A lot of those individual things about individual players won’t be made until post-season.”
To me, that statement doesn’t read as particularly good news for Oliver, but there’s enough ambiguity there that you could potentially read it either way. It’s definitely Ange kicking the can down the road, but it’s most notable in what he doesn’t say than what he does — not exactly a statement that brims with confidence about Skipp’s ability in future Ange Postecoglou sides.
Postecoglou also addressed the size of Spurs’ current squad, considering the number of players who are likely surplus to requirements and/or currently away from the club on loan. This includes players like Tanguy Ndombele, Joe Rodon, Djed Spence, Japhet Tanganga, and Sergio Reguilon, plus, potentially, younger players like Troy Parrott and Alejo Veliz. Postecoglou suggested that he’s well aware of the number of players that could (and maybe should) be moved on, but that the club has a plan and has been working at it for a while now.
“It’s an ongoing process. It was similar last year when I took over. It is just part of the process of planning and the difference from last year is we are well into that planning. Whereas last year we had to do it on the run because I came in post-season and we had a big squad then. We had a lot of decisions to make about players who were coming back from loans, players who could go out on loans, players we had to bring in or move out. This year we are a lot more calm in our approach because we’ve been working on it a while with Johan and the people in the football department.”
Tottenham kick off against Newcastle Saturday in the early time slot — 7:30 a.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. BST.