Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou says it was not a gamble to play Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero against Chelsea despite the defenders going off injured during Sunday’s 4-3 loss.
Van de Ven and Romero were surprise inclusions in Postecoglou’s starting line-up to face Chelsea at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with the former missing the last seven matches through injury and the latter absent for the last four.
Romero had been dealing with an injured toe and had to be withdrawn after only 15 minutes against Chelsea, which Postecoglou later said was due to a quad issue. Van de Ven had been out with a hamstring injury and was substituted after 79 minutes, having appeared to pull up while running.
“No,” Postecoglou replied when asked if it was a gamble to play his first-choice centre-back pair. “Like I said, Romero — it’s not like he injured the same thing, it’s a totally different injury.
“But also people are aware of our situation, it’s not like I’ve got a multitude of options there.
“You’ve got to make these decisions. both players trained and trained well. They both want to help, you make these decisions with all the best information. It’s not like Romero re-injured his toe, it’s a totally different injury, which could happen at any time.
“The plan was always for Micky to play 60-70 (minutes) today. Obviously, I thought Romero would be OK to play 90 but Micky probably 60-70 so we were always going to take him off.
“He didn’t feel anything significant, he just felt tightness, but we were always going to take him off anyway.”
On Brennan Johnson, who came off shortly after the start of the second half, Postecoglou added: “Brennan just didn’t feel well, he didn’t feel well at half time, but he wanted to give it a go, he just wasn’t feeling 100 per cent, so we had to take him off.”
Following the Chelsea loss, Spurs face Rangers in Glasgow in the Europa League on Thursday before a trip to Southampton in the Premier League next Sunday.
(Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
