Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou says the club are ‘working hard’ to try and make some signings this month to allow his injury-hit squad to compete.
Spurs face Newcastle at Saturday lunchtime with Postecoglou set to be without some players thanks to an illness bug.
He is already without defenders Micky van de Ven, Ben Davies and Cristian Romero, goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario and forwards Richarlison, Wilson Odobert and Mikey Moore.
To add to the issues, midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur is suspended for Saturday and left-back Destiny Udogie has been ruled out for six weeks with a hamstring injury.
Postecoglou said: “It’s not a matter of pushing but the club are working hard to try and get some help for the playing group. The club is working hard on that.
“January is not an easy month, it’s not an easy time to bring people in particularly quickly. At the same time, we want to do what is the best thing for us rather than panic and bring in people that are going to be a suitable fit.
“Richarlison and Mikey [Moore] are the two next cabs off the rank – hopefully next week at some point. Ben [Davies], [Micky] Van de Ven and [Cristian] Romero all kind of the same time which is the back end of January.”
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Tottenham have won just three of their last 13 games and were thrashed by Liverpool just before Christmas. They have an EFL Cup semi-final against the Reds coming up next week but the Australian hasn’t put his finger on what is causing their injury problems.
He said: “I think it is probably a combination of different things. The amount of fixtures, the way we play.
“I guess the challenging thing for us is that quite a few of our injuries have been re-injuries which is something we’re looking at. I don’t think it is unique to us. I think you see it across the board with clubs but we’ve been hit sort of more extreme. [Guglielmo] Vicario, his isn’t a muscle injury – his is long-term but that kind of exasperates the situation we are in.”
‘Tuchel will be impressed’
New England manager Thomas Tuchel will be in the stands for the game on Saturday, with striker Dominic Solanke out to impress.
The big-money signing from Bournemouth has scored 10 goals for Spurs this season and Postecoglou is confident the new boss will like what he sees.
“Dom [Solanke] has been outstanding for us,” he said.
“He has scored goals but his all round game and capacity to help the team in all aspects of our football – defensively, link-up play, still being a presence in the box, really intelligent with his movement and really carrying that position on his back with no help and no rest.
“It says an enormous amount of his character and what kind of person he is. I can’t speak highly enough of him. The load he has had to carry for us over the last two months without a lot of help from us allowing him to recover and yet he’s still every week putting in a massive performance – I’ve got no doubt Thomas Tuchel will be impressed with him.”
