Postecoglou  plains why Destiny Udogie excites him and why he wanted Vicario

Postecoglou  plains why Destiny Udogie excites him and why he wanted Vicario The Tottenham Hotspur head coach has spoken about some of his new young players who have made a huge impact on the club.

Ange Postecoglou has explained why Guglielmo Vicario and Destiny Udogie made such a big impression on him before making their big appearances at Tottenham this season.Both players fit perfectly into the Australian system and have received a lot of praise for their performances in the Premier League so far. Vicario became Tottenham’s first new main goalkeeper in 11 years after Hugo Lloris announced his intention to find a new challenge he is yet to find.Postecoglou admitted Vicario, 26, stood out when the club’s recruitment department presented him with potential replacements for Lloris who fit his system.“It was probably the priority position when I arrived because at the time it looked like Hugo was leaving and there was a need for a new starting goalkeeper,” he said. “You are presented with different options and I really liked Vic from the start because of the characteristics he has as a goalkeeper: his agility, his attitude, his character.Rob Guest says what Spurs Deadline Day should be like”Then I spoke to him and he’s such an infectious personality. He was so determined. He was so determined that he wanted to come to Tottenham and prove himself at a higher level. If you look at his career, he didn’t have a chance.” at the top level for a long time, comparable to Micky van de Ven and a few others. “I like players who have come up very quickly from a low level because it shows that they adapt very quickly, but also that they are coachable, that they learn. And if you look at Vic, he has made great strides. Quickly and he has been absolutely exceptional for us in the first six or seven games.”He had a really strong impact on the pitch in the important moments when we needed him. He comes in every day wanting to get better, and that’s exactly what we need.”As for Udogie, Postecoglou has been keeping a close eye on the Italy Under-21 left-back following his loan spell at Udinese, having signed for Spurs a year ago.”When I got the role I looked at all the players who had been loaned out last year and Destiny was one of them. I really liked his profile. Physically he has great qualities but he has clearly played a different style of football in football terms”. she was often used as an attacking full-back,” he said. “As a young player he made a big impact in a tough competition.

 

Serie A is a tough competition. He performed really well and it was a competition where, as soon as we signed him, I could see he wanted to improve every game. ” day.”He has excellent qualities and for a 20-year-old he has faced some really big challenges in defense and has performed so well. When he has the ball and runs forward he looks exciting.” I am very happy to have him in the group.”Playing against Bukayo Saka last weekend, Udogie improved every minute of the match against Arsenal to dominate that flank, and now the young Italian will face the equally imposing threat of Mohamed Salah next Saturday when Liverpool come to town.”This is the Premier League. That’s why it’s here,” Postecoglou said. “There is no bigger learning curve for him. That’s the good thing. As you saw last week, he had to work very hard against a top opponent, but in the end he did pretty well and he can’t rest on that because this week he has Salah and then he will have someone else, a Grealish or someone. “More things will happen in the next few weeks and he’ll have to deal with all that, but so far he’s doing great.”So what is the secret to Postecoglou’s ability to integrate new, mostly young players into his team, with Pedro Porro and Pape Matar Sarr also excelling under him after mixed first seasons at the club?”It depends. We must ensure that young players are capable of meeting the challenges at this level. “We must especially not denounce them too early, as this could have a harmful effect,” explained the Australian. “I’ve always thought – and it’s always stayed that way when we’re building the team – that I try to give them as much security as possible so that they know that nothing is going to happen there. ‘will happen in terms of terms. their career may be incurable. “Don’t worry about mistakes, don’t worry about not playing well. I will support you – as long as I see you improving, working hard, and doing everything I need from you. Because part of that stress as a young player is that you feel like you have to play really well to keep your place on the team, and you’re afraid that if you play in front of the whole world, it will costs you something. made a mistake.“It’s not just about the young players, we’re all in this together. We’re embarking on a new path and there’s a chance it won’t work. That’s why we all feel the same way. I’m no different from them because I’m sure if we got two wins instead of four after the first seven games, I’m sure [the president] would attack me now.”It’s not how I think. It’s not how I’m programmed, I don’t care. This is what we do. We’re going to follow this path and be successful and I’m trying to provide that structure so that at least takes that fear away and they can play like themselves, and then it’s their turn. “There are no guarantees. If their performance drops, they obviously won’t play, but I think it helps young players to focus on themselves as much as possible without worrying too much about the results

.Postecoglou is also letting his more experienced players shoot again and Son Heung-min, the Premier League’s second-highest scorer so far this season, enjoyed being named club captain by the new head coach.Saturday’s visiting manager Jürgen Klopp once described Son’s failed signing as one of the biggest mistakes of his career. When asked what changes he made to the player, Postecoglou explained why he thought last season was not the best for the South Korean star.“As for Sonny, it’s fair to say, and he said it himself, I don’t think he was 100% fit last year, but that’s his nature. If you ask him to play, he will play and do his best,” he said. “I think that probably affected his form more than anything else. Last year was a unique year for many players due to the World Cup. I don’t think it was a normal year for top players in many ways.”There’s no doubt about Sonny’s quality… I don’t think I’ve done anything dramatic to him, I think he’s just feeling better. He’s had a good pre-season and is enjoying playing for this football club. I think the way we play really suits him considering where he is in his career. I’m sure there will be more to come.”And Postecoglou’s biggest regret?“Man, I probably made a thousand mistakes,” he admitted. “You have to follow all these players, you get close to some of them and you don’t get them, but that’s life, man. We all make mistakes and we all learn from them.”This Saturday brings the test of Klopp and Liverpool challenging Postecoglou’s record of 50 consecutive unbeaten matches at home. Brennan Johnson will miss out with a minor hamstring injury suffered against Arsenal, but the Spurs manager hopes to have Son and James Maddison fit and playable after missing much of this week’s training due to injuries.”In those 50 games I had some important tests. I had some good teams, to be honest. I gave a lot of value to the form at home because that’s the moment when you see your fans, who you know are going, being the majority at the stadium, that feeling you want to give them, to see their team win a football match,” Postecoglou said.«I placed a lot of value on this. It’s 50 matches against all types of opponents and in different circumstances. There were games where we were down by ten men, there were games where, two weeks ago, we were down in the 95th minute. There are always tests that take a long time. I probably got lucky along the way too.That Liverpool came to Postecoglou’s first competitive encounter with them is somewhat fitting, as he was a Liverpool fan growing up in Australia. In the 1970s, Australian television channels mainly showed Manchester United or Liverpool matches, and while his friends chose United, young Postecoglou chose Liverpool to make things more interesting and had posters of Kenny Dalglish on his wall .“I felt like all my friends around me were Liverpool or Man United fans.” We had one game a week and it was invariably one of those two teams, so you were always drawn to them,” he said. “The FA Cup final has always been a huge game to watch in Australia and in the 70s Liverpool and Man United were always there. So as a young guy, I just looked at the circle of influence around me and it was always the teams that were highlighted in that part of the world.He remembered the games on television that he watched with his father, Jim, in the wee hours of the morning.”[I remember] the European Cup final and [in the league] they beat Tottenham 7-0 [at the start of the 1978 season], it was quite memorable. I saw them all mate , I didn’t miss anything, I recorded it.” They had cassettes, do you know what cassettes are? Video?” he said, laughing. “When they won the European Cup, I thought it was great. It’s 4am for 11 year old me, so it’s really tiring to get up and watch them. I remember all those games.”I still have the tyres, strangely I don’t know what to do with them. I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to things I grew up with, so they’re in boxes somewhere.”For Spurs fans worried about where Postecoglou’s loyalties may be now, he clarified earlier in his press conference that “as you get older, things change. I loved Happy Days then too, but I don’t have any pictures of it. The Fonz also on my wall Today!”.One of the most impressive aspects of Postecoglou’s transformation from Tottenham into one of the Premier League’s most exciting teams is that he has done it without Harry Kane, who now scores goals for Bayern Munich. Despite the loss of the England captain, Spurs scored the third most goals in the league.”Thank you to the players for this, because it is not unimportant. You can just say Harry has already done it. He’s a world-class striker,” said the Australian. “If he’s not the best, he’s in the top three, you know. So losing someone so important can have an impact, but the players haven’t used it as a crutch or an excuse.“They hugged him and said, ‘OK, we just have to move on, our supporters will still come and support us.’ They weren’t here to support Harry, they were supporting Tottenham.” That goes for any football club. The fans support the club and clubs move on quickly and we have to move on quickly.”There’s no point in feeling sorry for yourself. There was no doubt that the point that would be made if we were in difficulty would be if we didn’t score goals because it was obvious. So it’s helped the guys embrace that part of our game and it’s definitely part of how I’ve built a team with threats in all areas.He added: “It was great to see that our goals came from different sources: set pieces, counter-attacks, building up the play in the last minute to come from behind.””I think it was great because it doesn’t allow the story, which could have been very easy to tell if we hadn’t started well, and it was due to a lack of goals, to get out of hand. go.” well, you know, we didn’t replace Harry, but I think people on the team are saying that we play a certain way now and they are more interested in the development of this team than in this which is missing in development. “.One thing you will find at Tottenham this season is a calm head coach on the sidelines, compared to previous coaches who bounced around in the technical area. Postecoglou mostly just watches and analyzes while offering the odd advice when he feels a player needs it.“Look, I’ve had my moments, but I think with these things you can just be yourself, that’s who I am as a person,” he said. “I watch a football match like I watch a film. I’m focusing. When I look at it, I don’t like being talked to, I don’t like being distracted and to be honest I think I’ve probably even gone down a level in recent years because of VAR.”I also don’t want to look like a clown because you could party and it would be done, so I also have that thing in mind – let’s just wait and see what the outcome is – but that’s me.” I’m a person and I feel like my job on game day is really to make sure that I’m fully engaged in the game and able to concentrate as much as possible. »He added: “I think it depends on your personality. That’s how Jürgen is, that’s how Mikel or Pep are. You see them all and that’s how they are as people and how they see themselves, and you’re probably right. »A lot of this is probably stress-related. “It’s how we deal with stress and we all deal with it differently. That’s my coping mechanism, but other than that I’m just myself. I try to play my role on game day, rather than get emotional.” .”

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