Ange’s fitness update on Romero and Werner

Ange Postecoglou gave us a fitness update on Cristian Romero and Timo Werner after our 2-1 win against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday evening.

Both departed the fourth round tie early at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Ange reported that skipper on the night Cuti, ‘felt something at half-time’ and the central defender was substituted for Ben Davies on 52 minutes. Timo, who scored a brilliant opening goal on five minutes and twice went close in the second half, went down seemingly holding his right groin after 69 minutes, Richarlison taking his place.

Having also lost Micky van de Ven after just 14 minutes, the team dug deep to see the game out and take a place in the quarter-finals after making a blistering start with Timo’s goal and Pape Matar Sarr’s fine strike putting us 2-0 up after 25 minutes.

Asked about Cuti and Timo on our Review Show, Ange told us: “Romero felt something at half-time, felt a bit tight. I was going to take him off at half-time, but he was pretty insistent on starting (the second half), but after the game started, my gut was telling me after losing Micky, we couldn’t afford to lose Cuti as well. So, we took him off.

“Timo… hopefully that’s just a bit of fatigue. He put in a shift today and hasn’t played a lot but, look, that’s part of it. We have a much more rounded squad to cope with these things. You saw guys like Radu and Archie come in tonight, Rodrigo, and they all did a fantastic job for the team. A lot of players didn’t play tonight who can now come in and take up the slack.”