Ange's praise for Ben: "He’s done remarkably well"

Ange Postecoglou was full of praise for Ben Davies before and after our 2-0 win at Forest on Friday night.

The long-serving Wales international - now up to 323 appearances in all competitions in his 10th season here - has played primarily as a left-back or as a left-sided centre-back in a three in his time at Spurs, but has stepped into a central defensive role in Ange's 4-3-3 system in our last six games, and performed as consistently as ever in a new partnership alongside Cuti Romero in our last three.

The last two of those matches have been wins against Newcastle and Forest, and Ben has played a key role in both - he produced an instinctive clearance in front of his own net to deny Newcastle opening the scoring in our 4-1 win last Sunday, before keeping Forest at bay and helping us keep a clean sheet at the City Ground.

Ange was asked about the defensive side of the game ahead of Forest. "It is not just about the back four or Vic, as a team I thought we were a lot more organised with our press and particularly we knew Newcastle, counter-attacking, they’ve got some real threats up front if you’re not organised. We were a lot better in that sense. Romero makes a big difference to that but I thought Ben Davies was outstanding as well last week.

"Ben’s still adapting to it. He’s done remarkably well. Centre-back is still a position where, especially in our structure, it is one of the few positions where you need guys with outstanding attributes in there.

"We’ve been very fortunate that he’s been able to fill in for us there. He’s really good at taking in information, he really understands the game, not just his own role but how we want to play and that’s helped him. Having Romero next to him helps in that sense and Vic because he’s taken a bit of a leadership role back there as well."

After keeping a clean sheet at Forest, Ange said: "Forest test you in ways other teams don’t, a lot of long throws in the box and things we had to deal with, but I thought we held out really well and still played some decent football at times, created some good chances and scored two good goals.

“It wasn’t a game where we weren’t going to get challenged in that way. They are throwing the ball into the box from virtually the halfway line, so you are going to have to deal with that, it’s unavoidable. I thought Vic, Ben Davies, Romero were outstanding. The whole team handled it really well."