Ange Postecoglou is holding his press conference following Tottenham's 4-3 Carabao Cup quarter-final victory against Manchester United on Thursday night.
Spurs had Yves Bissouma back from suspension for this game and as Destiny Udogie picked up a knock against Southampton, Djed Spence switched across from the right to cover for the Italian.
Dominic Solanke netted the opening goal 15 minutes into the contest. Pedro Porro fried an effort from outside the box and Altay Bayindir parried it out and the striker smashes it in off the right-hand post. Dejan Kulusevski doubled the hosts' lead less than a minute into the second half. Skipper Son Heung-min played in James Maddison down the left and the midfielder fired the ball low into the box and it was only half-cleared to the Swede who smashed it home.
Solanke made it 3-0. Spence clipped a perfect ball over the top into the striker's path and he ran inside Lisandro Martinez and drilled a low shot into the bottom left corner for his second goal of the night bringing a punch of delight from Postecoglou.
Fraser Forster then made a fantastic full length save from Joshua Zirkee's header but then fluffed a pass to Radu Dragusin soon after which was intercepted by Bruno Fernandes and Zirkzee tapped his pass home. Forster then made another big error on 70 minutes, taking far too long to pass the ball and Amad slid in to send the ball back into the empty net.
Spurs scored a fourth goal though as Son's corner curled all the way in with Bayindir claiming Lucas Bergvall was holding his arm. United grabbed another one back when Jonny Evans headed past Forster but the host held on for the win and a semi-final spot.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold is among those putting the questions to Postecoglou after the game. Scroll down for his updates from the press conference.
Here's every word Postecoglou said
We've got the full transcript with every single word the Tottenham boss said which you can find by heading right here.
Postecoglou on Timo Werner's absence
Yeah, he was sick, mate, it's just the way we're going, it's just like he woke up this morning with a fever and the doc went and saw him, he had a high fever and we had to rule him out unfortunately, so it's just the way things are.
(On it summing up the current situation at Spurs) I mean I don't roll up to game day looking for good news, let me tell you, so yeah, it's just incredible. Like I said this is 10 players off a senior list, and it's just ridiculous and the fact that we're still putting in these levels of performance with guys, Archie, Djed, these kind of guys, I mean. We're getting, I believe, some real enormous growth in this period that maybe won't be evident until down the track, but I just think there's there's so much sort of good stuff in there at the moment, even though it's a tough period still.
The Tottenham boss on playing out from the back leading to errors
Look, fair to say in 26 years there's been a few of them, but I've always felt the pros well outweigh the cons of those kind of things, and those moments are rare, but when they happen, obviously, you know, they kind of stand out and today there was obviously two, and like I said I think it's just, I think the first one sort of affected Fraser for that next period.
For us it's still, I don't think we could be the team we are, if we didn't maintain our conviction around our beliefs. I know people will say 'well just don't take any risks' and all that sort of stuff, but then we wouldn't be scoring four goals and five goals and four goals and five goals. I mean, it's the hardest thing in the game to do, score goals, and we're doing it with bare bones of a squad. I think it's a massive credit to this group of players that we're performing at that level.
Postecoglou on Solanke
He has been outstanding, mate. Scored against Chelsea a week ago so people keep going on about his goals but it's his work rate. What he gives the team beyond his goals are unbelievable. His goals were quality tonight. Good striker’s goals. The first one to react and the second one calm and composed and a great finish. We would love to give him a rest but he just keeps going and going and it is a credit to him and all the boys.
The Spurs boss on Fraser Forster
He is disappointed because he was outstanding for us. Even before then in the first half I thought he was really good with his feet, he found some great solutions. The first one probably affected his confidence a little bit and he lost a bit of belief and the second one compounded it. But he is a big boy mate and he is another one who has stood up for us big time in this period. I can’t speak highly enough of this group of players. Again tonight we had 10 players from our list unavailable for one reason or another. We had a day’s rest less than Man Utd and we are not able to rotate the squad the way we want to, like other clubs can because we just don’t have the numbers. We are not just getting through games we are still maintaining our level of football. As I keep saying we will get to some smoother waters at some point but this period is going to see us have enormous growth.
Ange Postecoglou on the game
We played so well, well in control of the game. It’s the way our season has gone a little bit, we self-inflicted some pain on ourselves and then we had to scramble to get a foothold again. Ended up getting a fourth and winning the game. It should have been a lot more comfortable than it ended up being but having said that I still can’t get away from the fact this group of players is doing an unbelievable job at the moment to ge us through this. The fact we again scored four goals and played some understanding football. We got tired in the second half because we have a small number of players we keep putting out there. Obviously made it tighter than the game should have been. So proud of the players efforts.
