Ange Postecoglou has challenged Tottenham to build more momentum in the Premier League, but knows rotation will be key against Ipswich and Manchester City over the next week. Spurs moved up to 12th with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Manchester United on Sunday – thanks to James Maddison’s goal – to back up a win at Brentford two weeks earlier.
Tottenham had endured a torrid run of league form across the winter amid a huge injury crisis but Postecoglou has reiterated the opportunity they have with a trip to Portman Road followed by the midweek visit of defending champions City. “Obviously our last two Premier League games, Brentford away and Man United at home, have been two important results for us to kind of try and arrest the form in the league, but you need to keep doing that and backing that up,” Postecoglou said.
“Tomorrow’s an opportunity to do that. It’s not easy when you’re playing away from home and in the Premier League, especially against a team that’s fighting like Ipswich are. “We know it’s not going to be an easy one, but it is an opportunity for us now to get another strong performance, get another positive result and like I said, hopefully provide a bit of a foundation for us to kick on.”.
Postecoglou hinted Pedro Porro and Dejan Kulusevski could be rested at Ipswich, given they sit top of the minutes played by Tottenham players this season. Destiny Udogie and Brennan Johnson – who are both recently back from muscle issues – would be obvious candidates to be drafted into the line-up.
“Pedro, Kulusevski, these kind of guys, we’ve got an opportunity with the players we’ve got back to still maintain good levels of performance, but also give them a little bit of a rest,” Postecoglou added. “Again, once Europe kicks in, we know we’ve got to play midweek and weekend again, so we want to make sure we’ve got enough in the tank and we don’t want to lose any players during this period either.
“We’ve now got two games in quick succession in the league. Good opportunity for us to get some match minutes into guys who have been out for a while. “We saw Brennan and Wilson (Odobert), obviously, Vic (Guglielmo Vicario) come back last week, Madders, but Destiny as well.
“We need to get them some match minutes and these two games will give us an opportunity to do that.”. Postecoglou again suggested Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero could return when the club resume their Europa League campaign in the last-16 stage next month.
Spurs travel to AZ Alkmaar on March 6 before a return home leg a week later. Tottenham won 1-0 when the teams met in October. The Australian added: “Obviously a familiar opponent. We played them here at home and obviously watched that game. “Yeah, a good game for us, excited by seeing the draw. They did really well against Galatasaray. We played Galatasaray as well away and that’s a tough gig. They’re a good side so looking forward to it.”.
