Every word Ange Postecoglou said on mole inside Spurs leaking information and Mathys Tel future

Ange Postecoglou had plenty to get off his chest as he held a press conference on Friday afternoon ahead of Tottenham's Premier League game at Wolves on Sunday.

The boss was back in front of reporters quickly after Thursday night's 1-1 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League quarter-final first leg. must prepare his team for the trip to Molineux on Sunday, a place where Tottenham have not won since 2021 and have not beaten the West Midlands side home or away since 2022, losing three of their past four meetings.

Postecoglou spoke on Friday about a leak inside the club following speculation around fitness, as well as the latest on and Mathys Tel's future at the north London outfit.

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou and here's the full transcript from the press conference at Hotspur Way.

Any fresh injuries?

No, not from last night. A couple of boys cramping up, Destiny, Micky at the end, a couple of small knocks, obviously big physical numbers last night, so boys are a little bit tired this morning but health-wise everyone's good.

With that in mind, do you think you'll make more changes this Sunday with Thursday in mind?

Yeah, bit of a combination with Thursday in mind, but also with Sunday in mind because obviously there was a big physical toll last night, so you know away at Wolves is a challenging game, but I think for us it'll be about sort of managing minutes of some guys, but also getting some minutes into other guys.

We'll need a big game, big performance on Sunday, so having some fresh legs will help, but also looking to next Thursday, like I said it's not just about resting guys or managing guys, it's also about having guys ready next week as it could go to 120 minutes and we need people ready to go so a combination of those factors we'll make some changes.

People keep saying it's going to be tough in Frankfurt, but you showed that you've got more than enough about you to cause them problems?

I think both things are true. I think it will be tough over there, I think every away game in Europe is is a challenge. I think you saw last night, the other three ties ended up as draws apart from the Bodo Glint game, so I think next week will be tight, but like you said last night, I thought, even in the first half I thought we were well in control.

We obviously conceded the goal, which was disappointing, but I thought we fought back well and second half we dominated, so it's going to take a repeat of that kind of performance over there and I don't see any reason why we can't just because it's away, you know, I don't think that the circumstances will change. I don't think they'll change how they play and it's important for us to take the positives out last night and into next week.

How difficult is juggling the Thursday and Sunday matches, you spoke about the footballing gods last night but you need them to be with you to keep everyone fit?

Yeah, it is mate, I've put in my calls, but no one's picking up from the football gods, so I've got a feeling they changed their number recently, so all we can do is, like I said, prepare ourselves really well and and take some real positives from last night in terms of our football and our approach and our mentality.

I think irrespective of the situation you're in, I think quarter-final football in European competition is tight by its nature and we'll need a repeat of last night's performance and hopefully a couple of things do go our way, because last night it's fine margins from us having a comfortable lead but you know I really believe if we repeat that we'll get things going our way.

Sunday's fixture is a big one for the Korean fans, Son obviously played his part in the goal yesterday and had that great chance in the second half, I just wondered how important does he remain to you in terms of what he can bring on the pitch, but off it as well?

He's still a huge influence for us on and off the pitch. He's working hard for the team. I thought last night he played his part in us creating a lot of opportunities, and I thought, him and the others in the front three were really disciplined in the way we executed those. So yeah Sonny's hugely important to the club, hugely important to what we're doing at the moment.

What kind of challenge will the Wolves front line bring you?

Yeah, good challenge, they're a good side and I think they've sort of stabilised in recent times and especially at their place, we had a tough game at their place last year as well and that's why I think it's good preparation for us. I think we need to be again at the levels we need to be in the Premier League to get an outcome. We want to get another positive result. We obviously won last week and we want to keep that going and have momentum building into Thursday, so good challenge for us, but one we're up for.

What have you made of the work Vitor Pereira has done at Wolves?

Really good, I've known Vitor for a while, we crossed paths in Asia and good manager, good guy, and like I said, I think he stabilised them, when he obviously took over it was a bit dicey for them, but they're in a good place, but I I felt all along they had good players, they've got good individual players for sure. They've got some real talent in that team, so it's a good challenge for us.

The cynic in me would say Sunday's game doesn't really matter to you that much, it's a Premier League game, but that's about it, next Thursday is the be all and end all, would you not be better off wrapping up your first XI in cotton wool on Sunday and giving them a day off to relax and enjoy the sun in the garden?

That's the cynic in you? What's the optimist in you say? There's enough cynicism in this room mate, without you adding to it.

The optimist in me says there's a great chance of you going through next Thursday and I'd wrap up my starting XI in cotton wool.

(Laughs) Yeah, look I understand that and like I said, there is some of that in place, but I also think that it's no secret our league form this year has been nowhere near the level it needs to be and I really think ,especially in the first half last week against Southampton and we played well, last night, we want to continue that. And I don't think you need to compromise the way we go about things because I think the changes I make I think should help us because there'll be guys who didn't play last night or only played sort of cameos as that will have the energy we need for that and that with a combination of guys who'll back up. Some guys need games, you know, you can put them in cotton wool as much as you like, but some players need to play and they need to play pretty regularly, so it'll be a sort of combination of hopefully getting an outcome on Sunday and also having great preparation for Thursday.

Son’s form has not been great but can he be a leader on the pitch, or are you relying more on Romero and Bentancur?

No, both can be true. Sonny is very much the leader of the group on and off the field, but part of that process is to allow growth of other guys. We’ve seen that this year. I thought Rodrigo (Bentancur) was outstanding last night with the way he managed the whole game and Cuti’s (Romero) always a big presence for us. We’ve had guys like Deki (Kulusevski) earlier in the year standing up. I thought (James) Madders the last few weeks has really started. We need that spreading of the leadership load because underpinning that is still a very young group of players who are experiencing things for the first time. It’s your leaders that you hope will navigate them through that.

What is your response to people saying the Premier League is becoming robotic and also what do you make of Mo Salah's contract extension at Liverpool, good news for the English game?

Yeah definitely. Great news for Liverpool, I guess, more than anyone else. He’s such a fantastic player and, you’ve spoken about age before, but with certain players age is irrelevant. He’s probably had his best season this year and I don’t see him diminishing. Great for Liverpool, and you’re right, great for the league. You want the best players here performing in this competition. So that’s positive for everyone. In terms of overcoached, I think the beauty of the Premier League is that I think there’s still a diversity there when you look at all the managers. They come from all parts of the world and have different thoughts and beliefs. You still get a fair cross-section of different styles and i still think that there’s that eclectic mix of football that the Premier League is known for. I think with other leagues you maybe see a certain style through the whole league. I think here you still get that little bit of variation. I still think that that’s there.

It feels like the attacking chemistry is coming back in the past couple of games, can you see that in training?

The key thing for us is the training. We’ve got players back now, and our training looks a hell of a lot different to what it did for three or four months there where we can actually work on things — patterns and things that make us such a difficult team to stop. When we’re at our best we have multiple attacking avenues. As we saw, Pedro (Porro) scored last night at the near post and all those kinds of things. For those things to flourish in our system, you need cohesion and you need the ability to work on that in training. And just the quality of players we’ve got back now. We’re able to find so much... different solutions and that makes us hard to stop.

Cristian Romero is a fascinating character to watch, he likes to take the game by the scruff of the neck, sometimes charging forward and staying up front as a centre forward – what is that like as a manager?

Yeah, look I think within the scope of what we’re trying to do, one of it is just Cuti trying to be an instigator and an aggressor in the game with and without the ball. At different times it works. You might not remember but he scored a goal against Arsenal by doing exactly that. We understand there are moments you need to do that, other times we need to make sure we stay disciplined but for the most part, Cuti, when he’s out there, feels like he always wants to be somebody that makes an impact on the game and I think that’s important for us.

Mathys Tel’s Tottenham career has barely started but there's already reports in Germany about him going back to Bayern, you have been strong about him staying here, presume that is still the case?

Yeah, I mean don’t believe everything that comes out of German press. Any press really these days. I shouldn’t say press but just information in general. The days of it being double-checked, triple-checked, triple-sourced are long gone. No, Mathys is important for us. When he came in, people forget, he hadn’t played hardly at all at Bayern and we threw him in. He was playing game after game after game and it was always going to be a big ask for him, but that’s the challenge he had. Now we’re working with him at training, we really believe he can make an impact and physically he’s much better now. He’s in a much better place and he’s getting to understand our game a lot better, so we’ll keep working with him. I still think he’s an exciting talent and happy to have him.

You mention don’t believe everything you read, there was a lot of social media chat about Odobert yesterday – is everything fine with him?

Yeah, he’s OK. Again, with all the guys who have come back from long-term injuries, we’ve taken a different approach and we kind of know we need to always be monitoring how they’re going. We did it with Micky, Destiny, Romero and all these guys who came back from long-term injuries. There are different times when they’re going to get sore in different areas, but Wilson trained today and we’ll see how he is tomorrow. He should be available for the weekend but certainly nothing wrong with him.

Look, there is no doubt we have got a leak inside the club. Somebody who continues to leak out information. They have all year. I don’t know why. It doesn’t help us. It just makes our job more difficult. We try really hard to keep things in-house like all clubs because we don’t want on game-day opposition being aware of any sort of team selection, but we’ve got somebody within our camp who continually gives out information.

We’ve narrowed it down, we’ve been looking at it for quite a while and kind of have a fair idea of where it is coming from. We’ll deal with it but it’s not helpful for us and half of it is mis-information, half of it is half of the information but irrespectively, it certainly doesn’t help our cause because on game-day what you want to try and do is keep as much information in-house. We try really hard to find out information about the opposition and very hard to, but with us, someone has an open line to what we do. It’s disappointing because you’d like to think everyone who is in our camp is working with us, not against us.

How's Kulusevski – you mentioned last night he was touch and go for next week in Frankfurt?

Yeah he’s trained today with the team, well with the guys who didn’t play last night and he is looking good. He won’t be available for Sunday obviously but the plan is for him to train through the weekend, train with the first-team from the beginning of the week and if he gets through that, he’ll definitely be available for Thursday. Again, unlikely to start because he’s been out for a while but he looks really good.

Is Brennan Johnson a good reference for Sunday – he scored twice against Southampton to earn the shirt last night, is that what others coming in at Wolves should think?

Yeah, spot on and you’ve just stole my team review this morning. Is the leak getting to you too, mate? (laughs). Jesus Christ. Yeah that’s what I said to the boys, seven days in football is a long time and what ideally we want is people to play Sunday, play really well and be ready for selection and pushing the guys who are there. That is the beauty of having a strong squad and I always feel competition is the healthiest way to get the best out of people and that’s the opportunity that exists. Thursday might go on for 120 minutes and that means players that come on even late in the game will have to play for a good 45 minutes of top-level football. So, yeah that is an opportunity for the guys and certainly I think with the ways the guys are training, that is how the guys who play will see it. They won’t see it as a token game. They will see it as an opportunity to push their case forward.

Sinking Saints and preparing for Frankfurt - to listen to the latest episode of Gold & Guest Talk Tottenham

Want breaking and top Tottenham stories sent straight to you? Join our Spurs WhatsApp community by If you're curious you can check out our privacy policy