‘I should have looked at things differently’ – Postecoglou opens up on Spurs’ injury nightmare this season | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou admits he has regrets about the way in which he brought players back into his Spurs side following injuries this season.

Tottenham have endured a nightmare with injuries this season, losing several key players for long periods which has been a significant factor in their Premier League struggles.

They sit 14th going into the game against Chelsea and reflecting on his side’s injury struggles, Postecoglou admits he would have done things differently in some cases.

“In retrospect we, or I, should have probably looked at it from a different perspective of how and when to re-introduce players to the first team,” he explained.

The Spurs boss highlighted the difficulty of bringing players back late on in pre-season before going straight into competitive action.

“I don’t think it was the actual process of pre-season, it was more whose involved in it more than anything else,” he continued.

“I think last year we had a lot of players on international duty who came back pretty late so I guess what I’m trying to explain is that I think players need a good two to three week block of training before they play.

“So if that means that somebody comes back in the last week of pre-season, rather than us putting him in the first team, give them that block and then make them available for selection.

“It’s not the actual design of pre-season.”

Spurs’ earlier season defeat to Chelsea saw them lose central defensive duo Cristian Romero and Micky Van de Ven to long-term injuries, having both only returned from their previous injury issues in that game.

“What prompted me to put them in was Romero was coming back from a knock on his toe but he was fit and Micky, obviously, with his hamstring he’d passed all the tests,” Postecoglou reflected.

“We’d done everything and everyone felt like he (Micky) was ready to go.

“There was some other context around that. We’d lost another couple of centre-halves and it kind of unraveled.

“Going into the game my concern was Micky. I wasn’t really concerned about Cristian but then we lost him with an unrelated injury and it puts more pressure on Micky and then he gets injured.

“In hindsight I would have not played either of them and they would have got injured the next game, that’s just the way football works.

“With that sort of thing it’s better you take a step back and look at it from an overall perspective rather than pinpoint one time.”