Ange Postecoglou has said he will build his Tottenham team around Son Heung-min but will still sign another striker, admits he prefers Dejan Kulusevski out wide and has not ruled out having to use Hugo Lloris in goal at some point if the injury crisis continues.
Kulusevski has impressed in a deeper number eight role for Spurs in recent matches, but scored a late equaliser at Manchester City on Sunday after switching back to his regular right wing role. The 23-year-old Swede admitted after impressing against Aston Villa in the central role last month that he felt like “the real Dejan” after switching infield.
Postecoglou admitted that he is unsure if Kulusevski prefers to play in that central role but hopes the experience adds something to his game wherever he plays.
“I don’t give them surveys. He has played there earlier in his career. If there are players who can it’s great for them to have a different perspective when they go back out wide, I don’t know if it’s his preferred position or not but it frees them up and they see the game a little bit differently,” he said.
“A bit like Sonny going into the central role. I reckon if I put him back on the left wing he would have a different perspective again.”
He added: “I like [Kulusevski] out wide. I think he can be a much bigger goal threat and we’re pushing him really hard in those areas. With his general energy and work-rate and his ability to break lines with his running, he’s probably more suited in my system to out wide but watching him centrally in the last couple of games he’s very effective in there and certainly an option for us.”
Premier League teams are scoring more goals than normal, currently averaging 3.16 per game, and the Tottenham boss gave his opinion on why while declaring that his side will score far more goals in the months ahead than they currently are.
“There’s about 20 minutes of extra game-time every week!” he offered as a reason for the increased goal tally across the competition. “Well, it’s an interesting one. If we did a goals-per-minute, what would that work out [to be]? There’s a stats freak out there who will bring it out for me. I don’t know, but I do enjoy it, I’ve got to admit.
We are still well short in that area. It’s still the area where we’ve got so much more upside in our front third to score more goals. I really feel like, apart from some areas where we need to keep working on, our front third stuff we’ve got so much more improvement to get to as a team.
“We’re seeing some of it at the moment. Brennan and Deki Kulusevski are starting to get a bit more familiar with their roles and Gio getting a couple of goals from midfield, but I think it’s an area we can certainly improve. But I think it’s great [that teams are scoring more goals]. Ultimately it’s what people love about our game. That release of when a team scores and the more goals you have, the more exciting games get.”
Giovani Lo Celso is one player who has impressed in recent games, filling the void left by James Maddison to a degree and scoring goals in each of his past two matches against Villa and City. The Argentine has struggled to find a regular place at Tottenham since signing in 2019 and was expected to leave in the summer but after impressing Postecoglou in pre-season was convinced that he could play a part under the Australian.
“I didn’t have that specific sort of talk to him or anyone else [about wiping the slate clean]. I think most players understand that. Some might feel that what they’ve done in the past is enough, that’s fair enough as well, or if they’ve come off a tough time, then they see it as an opportunity for some sort of redemption,” said the Spurs head coach.
“The only thing with Gio, I just wanted to make sure, not just him but all those guys who were on the periphery and uncertain about their future, was that I wasn’t going to make any decision until they had a real good opportunity to show me what they could do. I sensed with him that that’s all he wanted and he was prepared to take whatever fallout there was from that, but he wanted a decent shot at it.
While Lo Celso has come to the foreground in the past fortnight, one man who remains very much in the background is former Spurs captain Hugo Lloris. The Frenchman was the club’s number one goalkeeper for 11 years but after failing to settle on a move last summer after publicly stating his desire for a new challenge, has remained at the club without playing any part in a matchday squad yet as his contract enters its final six months.
In a show of what the future holds in the goalkeeping position with Guglielmo Vicario impressing as Postecoglou’s main man, his number two Fraser Forster was handed a new contract until 2025 this week to keep him at the club for the next 18 months at least. So what has happened to Lloris?
