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Ange Postecoglou insisted that Tottenham would “go there to try to win” against Aston Villa on Friday, despite suffering more injuries before the Europa League final on Wednesday.
Tottenham’s season rests at their meeting with Manchester United in Bilbau next week, the Spurs withstanding a catastrophic domestic campaign in which 20 defeats suffered in the Premier League.
The win in the Europa League final would secure the Champions League qualification and, seeing Dejan Kulusevski (knee) and Lucas Bergvall (ankle) the rest of the season, Postecoglou will be forgiven for making significant changes in his initial XI to visit Villa Park.
But the decision-making would probably attract surveillance, given Villa, in the crowd in the Champions League football race and started only 45 minutes before the Chelsea match started with Manchester United at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea and Villa were at the point of points on the fifth and sixth in the race for the top five, and only the goal difference separated them. Five points behind Arsenal in the second, three chapter of Newcastle United were preoccupied with the third and two behind Manchester City in the fourth.
Asked about protecting the integrity of the Champions League race, Postecoglou told a press conference before the match: “We will surely go there to try to win the game tomorrow and throw out a team that, we hope he will do the job.
“I’m not sure of integrity. There were times this year when we had to weaken teams due to injury. Does this affect integrity? So if people think there is a kind of competitive balance that exists or does not exist during the season, I would be very surprised that people question our integrity for attempted and winning the football game tomorrow.
“I will single out a team that I think will do his best to win in a football game, yes.”
The loss of Kulusevsky for the season came after James Maddison was excluded for the rest of the campaign, robbing Tottenham with two of their main creative influences.
Soon, say 🤍 pic.twitter.com/u1pq2y0lcb
– Tottenham Hotspur (@spurstified) May 14, 2025
“Disappointed news. At first, we thought it wasn’t too serious,” Postecoglou said about Kulusevsky’s injury. “The medical team was worried about the structural that the knee was, but it seemed good. Somehow he blew the day after and we knew there was a problem there.
“He had surgery and that would throw him out for at least a few months.
“It’s just a reflective and in accordance with everything else that happened this season. We just didn’t have a smooth. Every time we look like we’re getting to where we look in a decent form, we’ve always been affected.
“The last few weeks again, these are just the circumstances that have happened probably in one part of the park.”
One player who will be involved in Spurs is striker Son Heung-Mu, although Postecoglou suggested that he did not decide on what extent.
“It will definitely play tomorrow, whether we start with him or not, we will look. But he definitely responded well to play the other day (against Crystal Palace),” Postecoglou explained.
“There was no problem with his foot and he trained well. It makes sense to get more minutes. That could be a starter, but if not, tomorrow he’ll definitely play at least half of the game.”
