Tottenham Hotspur had more than enough in the tank to get a 1-0 win over AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League yesterday evening without their club captain and talisman Son Heung-Min. They’ll need to draw from that same well for this Sunday’s Premier League match at Crystal Palce, after Ange Postecoglou ruled Sonny out of contention as he continues to recover from an injury.
Speaking in a press conference ahead of Sunday’s match, Big Ange said that Sonny’s injury isn’t a serious one, but he’s not quite ready to feature against the Eagles and he’ll be held back out of caution. Djed Spence is another player who is close, but not quite close enough to play on Sunday; Ange said Spence is close to a return to training, but probably won’t be fit to feature against the Eagles.
“[The players from] last night [are] all good, no issues but obviously a bit of fatigue with some of the boys as they haven’t played for a while but all good. Sonny is still not right or feeling 100%. He won’t train today and so unlikely for the weekend and we’ll see how he is beyond that.
“[Spence is] getting closer so we’re hoping next week he’ll join back in training.”
And that was pretty much all the Palace discussion we got in this press conference, because all the media really wanted to talk about was Moore. Spurs’ 17-year old homegrown product had an impressive match against AZ, especially in the second half when he was moved to his natural LW position. Moore looked unafraid to take players on on Thursday, dribbling past more than one defender on multiple occasions and getting into space. He also nearly scored a header from a lovely cross from Timo Werner in the first half. Even James Maddison quipped that he “thought we had Neymar on the left wing.”
It was certainly a performance that made people sit up and pay attention, but Postecoglou continued to try and tamp down a little of the hype, saying (again) that Spurs need to be careful about how they manage Moore’s minutes this season.
“[Mikey] is ready to start any game but I just feel and especially with young players you need to be really careful with their introduction into senior football. Even last year he didn’t really have a full season of football, he had quite a few injuries, a couple of injuries that kept him out and he went from playing Under-18s football to playing very little Under-21s football before we integrated him.
“You have to look at that and I think he is still physically growing and you take that into account. I think he’s ready to start a Premier League game, for sure. For us what we want to do is to continue to develop Mikey in the right way and give him a platform to keep improving. So far whatever we’ve asked of him he’s made a real impact and the plan is to continue to do that.
“The key is that you treat each case individually. If you start having a blanket policy, that’s where you miss… The key for us this year was to try to expose Mikey to first-team environment and that was more important than him just getting game-time because he hadn’t been at this level for any length of time. Other players who maybe have a year of first-team environment but haven’t had game time maybe need to go out on loan but Mikey wasn’t in that boat.
“You say ‘bits and pieces’ but we are only seven or eight games into a Premier League season and with Europe and Carabao Cup, he’s already played. If he’s played 15 to 20 games for Mikey between now and the end of the season, I don’t think it is bits and pieces, I think it is meaningful for him. And then we assess it from there. It’s important we just treat these things on an individual basis because ultimately what you want to do is best for that player, rather than a blanket approach.”
Honestly, that’s probably fine. Crystal Palace have yet to win a match in the Premier League this season and sit in 18th in the table with just three points from eight matches. Spurs haven’t lost to Palace at Selhurst Park since 2015, and while there aren’t any easy or “gimme” matches in the Premier League, this does have the feel of a match where Spurs can probably be okay without Son playing, considering the depth they have at his position. Timo Werner, who started against AZ last night but was subbed off at halftime, is an option on the left, and Spurs also have the services of Wilson Odobert and Richarlison as options on that side.
Moore could also get some minutes, though I would imagine if he does play on Sunday it will be as a late sub, considering he played the fully 90 in the Europa League on Thursday, and especially considering Ange’s comments on Moore’s development above. To be clear it’s not that Ange is saying that Moore can’t handle playing two matches a week — it’s that Spurs are in a position with their depth that he doesn’t have to. And that’s fine.
There was a lot of angst after Tottenham’s capitulation to Brighton a couple of weeks ago, but two wins on the spin have seemed to banish a lot of the bad vibes from that loss. Postecoglou certainly seems to think that this year’s team is more resilient than last year’s team, even when faced with some of the same challenges that plagued Tottenham down the stretch toward the end of last season.
“[It’s] a lot different. We’re more consistent in our football, more consistent in our performances. The results last year were great and we were playing with a lot of enthusiasm and real energy. I knew that wasn’t sustainable and pretty quickly we found that out for a number of reasons. Whereas this year we’ve already had injury disruptions and handled them a lot better.
“We’ve got a more well-rounded squad to handle what’s ahead of us. We’ve got a heavier games programme but we’ve held together. We’ve progressed as a side, players have developed in the last 12 months to another level. When I think about Brennan, Deki and others. We’re in a better place but we need to be. Hopefully we’re in a better place in 12 months time, we’re also in a better place because that’s how you progress.”
Tottenham kick off at Crystal Palace this Sunday at 10:00 a.m. ET / 2:00 p.m. UK (take note, Americans — daylight savings time ends this Sunday in the UK!). The match will not be televised in the UK, but will be streamed on Peacock in the USA.
