Presser points | Spurs 4-3 Man United, Carabao Cup | Ange Postecoglou

Ange Postecoglou spoke to the media after our 4-3 win against Manchester United in the quarter-final of the Carabao Cup at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Thursday night.

Here's what he had to say...

Overall thoughts

First up, it was put to Ange, 'you seemed to be cruising, and then two errors changed the whole momentum didn't it?'

Ange: "We were. We played so well, well in control of the game. It’s the way our season has gone a little bit, we self-inflicted some pain on ourselves and then we had to scramble to get a foothold again, ended up getting a fourth and winning the game. It should have been a lot more comfortable than it ended up being but having said that I still can’t get away from the fact this group of players is doing an unbelievable job at the moment to get us through this. The fact is we again scored four goals and played some outstanding football. We got tired in the second half because we have a small number of players we keep putting out there. Obviously, that made it tighter than the game should have been, but I'm so proud of the players' efforts."

Fraser Forster

It turned into a testing night for Fraser, and it was put to Ange, 'Fraser Forster has been good for you, do you have to take a performance like that and put it to one side?'

Ange: "He is disappointed because he was outstanding for us. Even before then in the first half I thought he was really good with his feet, he found some great solutions. The first one probably affected his confidence a little bit and he lost a bit of belief and the second one compounded it, but he is a big boy and another one who has stood up for us big time in this period. I can’t speak highly enough of this group of players. Again tonight we had 10 players from our list unavailable for one reason or another. We had a day’s rest less than Man United and we are not able to rotate the squad the way we want to, like other clubs can, because we just don’t have the numbers. We are not just getting through games, we are still maintaining our level of football. As I keep saying, we will get to some smoother waters at some point but this period is going to see us have enormous growth."

Dominic Solanke

Next up, Ange was asked about two-goal Dominic Solanke's display...

Ange: "He has been outstanding, scored against Chelsea a week ago, so people keep going on about his goals, but it's his work rate - what he gives the team beyond his goals is unbelievable. His goals were quality tonight, good striker’s goals. The first one to react and the second one calm and composed and a great finish. We would love to give him a rest, but he just keeps going and going and it is a credit to him and all the boys."

Semi-final satisfaction

Ange was asked about the importance of having a semi-final (against Liverpool) to look look forward to...

Ange: "We're in a semi-final of a cup competition, so I think that's something to reflect this progress for us and we've got an opportunity now, home and away, to get to a final, and we've earned that opportunity. It's one to look forward to, but we've got important games starting this week, Sunday (Liverpool at home in the Premier League), that we've still got to get through and the mentality the boys are showing at the moment, we're going to tackle these games in the same way we've tackled the ones in recent times."

Is this a reward for their mentality of fighting through this period?

Ange: "Yeah, absolutely, because you do. I mean, it's one thing to kind of fight and show determination and me praising them, but they need the rewards as well of winning, how that makes you feel, because then you can get them to dip into the well again because they know that good things can happen."

Philosophy

It was put to Ange, 'as you've explained before at length that you think playing from the back suits your team and why you should persist with it, what's going through your mind when not just one but two errors like that come up?'

Ange: "Look, fair to say in 26 years there's been a few of them, but I've always felt the pros well outweigh the cons of those kind of things, and those moments are rare, but when they happen, obviously, you know, they kind of stand out and tonight there were obviously two, and like I said I think the first one sort of affected Fraser for that next period. For us, I don't think we could be the team we are, if we didn't maintain our conviction around our beliefs. I know people will say, 'well, just don't take any risks' and all that sort of stuff, but then we wouldn't be scoring four goals and five goals. I mean, it's the hardest thing in the game to do, score goals, and we're doing it with bare bones of a squad. I think it's a massive credit to this group of players that we're performing at that level."

Timo Werner

Ange was asked about Timo Werner's absence from the matchday squad...

Ange: "He was sick. It's just the way we're going. He woke up this morning with a fever and the doctor went and saw him, he had a high fever and we had to rule him out, unfortunately, so it's just the way things are."

How it's going...

It was put to Ange that Timo's illness summed up our current injury situation...

Ange: "Pretty much, yeah. I don't roll up to game day looking for good news, let me tell you! So, yeah, it's just incredible. Like I said, this is 10 players off a senior list, and it's just ridiculous, and the fact that we're still putting in these levels of performance with guys, Archie, Djed, these kind of guys, I mean, we're getting, I believe, some real enormous growth in this period that maybe won't be evident until down the track, but I just think there's there's so much sort of good stuff in there at the moment, even though it's a tough period still."