Tottenham new boys Kevin Danso and Mathys Tel ready to face Liverpool in cup | OneFootball

Tottenham will have Kevin Danso and Mathys Tel available for Thursday’s Carabao Cup semi-final second leg at Liverpool but Ange Postecoglou has revealed Micky van de Ven is set to miss out.

Spurs were active during the final days of the winter transfer window with centre-back Danso signed from Lens on Sunday before, 24 hours later, forward Tel was convinced to join the club from Bayern Munich.

Both loan additions have received their international clearance and work permits to be in line to debut at Anfield, but a “conservative approach” will be taken with Van de Ven, who played in last week’s 3-0 win over Elfsborg after a seven-week lay-off with a hamstring issue before he missed the victory over Brentford.

“Kevin and Mathys are both available. They have trained and are cleared to play so they are all good,” Postecoglou explained.

“With Micky and (Cristian) Romero to a certain extent, I kind of feel we have to be a bit more conservative with them.

“Micky got through the game alright but I don’t think he feels ready for that step up to the Premier League, the intensity of it. Same with Romero.

“After losing Radu (Dragusin) for the rest of the season, which is really disappointing for him and for us, my view is – and I made the decision – that I don’t want to risk losing these guys.

“We are going to keep them ticking over in training and try to make sure they are absolutely ready without any more setbacks.”

Van de Ven’s comeback against Elfsborg raised hope he may feature in this second leg and, while Postecoglou reiterated the Netherlands defender had not suffered a new issue, he suggested he is not yet ready to handle the physicality of Premier League opposition after a lengthy absence.

Postecoglou added: “He got through the game no problem, but we had a look at the figures towards the physical (side). He does a lot more training and he got through it OK, but the Premier League’s a whole different beast.

“And after losing Radu, I kind of sat down and thought about what we’ve got ahead of us still.

“Look, don’t get me wrong, we’ve got a couple of massive games this week for sure (Liverpool on Thursday, Aston Villa on Sunday), but we’ve also afforded ourselves a couple of weeks, hopefully, without midweek fixtures, and beyond that, Europe kicks in, which is massive for us.

“Hopefully we’re in the final of the Carabao Cup, hopefully we’re still in the FA Cup. I just don’t see the sense right now in risking that.

We got what we wanted done (in January transfer window), but it was tricky.

Ange Postecoglou

“Having Kevin in is a massive bonus for us. (Van de Ven) hasn’t re-injured the injury or anything like that, it’s just that I just feel we need to get more into him. I think he feels he needs to get more into him, same with Romero, so it’ll just be a wait-and-see approach.”

Postecoglou also declared himself happy with the club’s work in the winter transfer window even though Danso and Tel arrived after a packed January scheduled for his injury-hit group.

“Look, it wasn’t an easy window for us or anyone,” Postecoglou said.

“We got what we wanted done, but it was tricky. I said at the start that Europe has complicated it with the new format, all sorts of challenges, and a lot of us were looking for similar players like centre-backs or attacking players.

“It was a tricky market. Ideally, we would have wanted things done early but we got what we needed to get done and that has given us a platform to push on.”