EINTRACHT FRANKFURT vs TOTTENHAM: Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou could be faced with the sack if his side fail to qualify for the Europa League semi-finals on Thursday night
Ange Postecoglou claims he’s “willing to fight tooth and nail” to keep his job and Tottenham’s Europa League dream alive – even after losing captain Son Heung-min.
The defiant Aussie, who will be without his South Korean skipper against Eintracht Frankfurt due to a foot injury, declared he “couldn’t care less” that critics are billing the crunch quarter-final in Germany as a match that could define his career.
Postecoglou said when asked whether speculation over his future has become a personal burden: “No, not at all, mate, because I don’t define my career and me as a person by what people think about me. I never have and never will. If you don’t think I’m a good coach today, you won’t think I’m a good coach tomorrow, even if we win, one game ain’t going to make a difference to that.
“You either think I’m capable of doing the job now or you don’t, that’s where I sit with these things. If people think that us winning tomorrow all of a sudden makes me a better manager than what I am today or us losing tomorrow somehow makes me a worse manager, I guess that’s their burden, not mine.
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“What I’m sitting here doing is thinking we’ve got a great opportunity to get to the final four of a major tournament. I’m not going to let that slip by without fighting tooth and nail for it irrespective of what may come the day after.” Passionate Postecoglou also conceded that Son’s injury typifies the dismal luck Spurs have been forced to endure all season ahead of the most important match of his tenure. He continued: “Yeah, look it’s a blow but it’s consistent with everything else that’s happened this year, so it’s just another challenge for us to overcome.
“It’s really unfortunate for him and he tried really hard. The reason we left him out at the weekend was to give him time to recover because he’s been struggling with this foot thing for a couple of weeks now, but he couldn’t make it.”
Meanwhile, Spurs centre-back Micky van de Ven revealed his plan to “eliminate” 21-goal Frankfurt frontman Hugo Ekitike, who struck the opener in north London last week. He said of the highly-coveted £70million-rated Frenchman: “He’s a really good player and scored a really good goal against us. “Tomorrow it’s going to be our job, me and the players playing next to me, to eliminate him from the game. He’s an unbelievable threat for them, so we want to eliminate him tomorrow and get the win.” Swedish talisman Dejan Kulusevski is fit to start in a major boost for Tottenham.
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