Guess it wasn’t just “tightness” after all. Speaking in a press conference ahead of Thursday’s Europa League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Rangers at Ibrox, Ange Postecoglou said that Spurs will be without both Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero after both were substituted out in Sunday’s loss to Chelsea. Postecoglou also called the current injury crisis at the club one of the worst he’s been through in his career.
“[The injury situation is] not much better. With the weekend’s fallout, Romero and Van de Ven, we’re still getting clarity over the injuries but we’re going to be without them again. At the moment we’re still trying to get timelines on those guys so I wouldn’t put a time on it yet.
“Yeah [laughs], I have to get creative. I think Archie [Gray]’s probably the one for us at the moment that we need to try and get to fill in there. He’s done right back, left back for us. Had to play at center back a little bit this year, he did during the pre-season. With him and Radu [Dragusin], they’re the two main sort of defenders. We’ve still got five or six games to navigate, so we may have to get creative at at some point and deal with it in a different way.”
This just feels like terrible, awful, no good, very bad luck. Romero’s injury, reported yesterday by Gaston Edul to be around a six week recovery time, is kind of whatever — it’s a new injury probably unrelated to the toe injury he had just recovered from, unless you believe that proprioception can influence muscular injuries in other areas.
But Van de Ven just feels cruel. He had just come back from his second long term hamstring injury and now maybe has picked up a third. After Sunday’s loss, Ange called Micky’s situation “tightness” and diminished the impact, but this maybe implies it’s a bit more serious than what was first acknowledged. We don’t know what happened — maybe Van de Ven was rushed back too soon, or maybe it was just a dice roll that came up snake-eyes. Or maybe Ange just lies about injuries. We do know that he listens to and follows the guidance of the club physios.
Ange also spoke to the nature of the injury crisis currently happening at the club, and said the club is trying to address to minimize the impact on players as much as possible.
“I never think it’s just bad luck. Some of it. I’ve never lost a goalkeeper for this period of time. Some of the other issues that we’ve had… But some of it is recurring, particularly this year in terms of guys coming back and re-injuring. It’s something we’re looking at. We’re always trying to explore whether we can do things better. Last year was different to this year. Last year it hit us across the board. This year it’s more guys that are coming back who are affected. Knock on wood, we’ve got a core group who are playing a lot and are getting through it ok. But it is something we are trying to address.”
Speaking of Romero, Postecoglou was also asked about Cuti’s comments to Telemundo recently where he expressed support for Ange but had pointed criticism at the Spurs board, ostensibly including chairman Daniel Levy. Ange admitted that Romero’s comments were heartfelt and emotional, but that he probably made the wrong choice to air his opinions in a public forum such as that.
“He was very emotional. He hasn’t been able to help us on the pitch. I think that was his way of trying to help. We’re going through a tough time and he believes in what we’re doing. The other part [about the hierarchy], he probably went about it the wrong way. I don’t think our challenges at the moment are about one person. I haven’t and have never believed that.
“To come through this, that’ll only happen if we remain united. Cristian, he realizes that lot of what he said was good but some wasn’t the right way of dealing with it. The same way I wouldn’t criticize a player publicly.
“I just think you deal with these things internally. I just don’t think there’s any benefit for us. I know people get really salacious about punishments and stuff. They really love that sort of thing. I think I’m pretty consistent in saying I don’t just think that’s important. I think what’s more important is an understanding of how we should deal with these things and deal with them better.
“I’ve already spoken to Cristian about it and and you know, he’s apologized for the fact that the way he said it, particularly in the public sense, wasn’t the right way to go about things. He’s a human being, he got emotional and I think he just expressed what he wanted to express, probably in the wrong way.
“He does care. I think it would have been easy for him not to say anything. He does care, but there’s a way to do these things and a way to express yourself and the way he did it wasn’t the right way.”
Spurs will kick off against Rangers in Glasgow in the Europa League tomorrow under the lights at 3 pm ET / 8 pm UK. Expect a CB pairing of Radu Dragusin and Archie Gray.
