Ange Postecoglou faces a new challenge with Tottenham Hotspur this season. By guiding them to a fifth-placed finish in the Premier League during his first year in charge, they earned a spot in the expanded version of the Europa League.
They will face eight different teams in its league phase between now and the end of January, with games equally split between home and away. The opening fixture is on Thursday, at home against Azerbaijani champions Qarabag.
Tottenham have made it to the quarter-finals only once in their past seven appearances in this competition, which they won in its former guise as the UEFA Cup in 1972 and 1984, and were also finalists in 1974, under Andre Villas-Boas in 2012-13. They should have a genuine chance of winning it again and fulfilling Postecoglou’s statement that he “always wins trophies” in his second year. They are one of the top-ranked teams, alongside Roma, Porto, Ajax and Manchester United.
One of the other changes with the new format is that third-placed teams from the Champions League no longer drop into the knockout stage of this competition. So if Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan or Borussia Dortmund go out of the Champions League after its league phase, they will not suddenly emerge, like an overpowered boss in a video game, to block Tottenham’s path to the trophy. In four of the past five seasons, a club that started off in the Champions League group stage has ended up contesting the Europa League final.
Spurs boss Postecoglou talks to the media ahead of the Qarabag game (Zac Goodwin/Getty Images)
Postecoglou needs to strike the right balance between giving minutes to players who will not feature regularly for him in the Premier League with putting out teams capable of winning enough games to finish in the top eight of the Europa League’s revamped opening stage. If Spurs finish between ninth and 24th, they will face a two-legged tie in February to try to qualify for the last 16 that way. Any lower and they will be eliminated from Europe for the season.
Tottenham were able to pick only a 23-man squad for the league stage (academy prospects such as Will Lankshear and Mikey Moore are not included in this number but can still play in the matches) while other clubs were allowed up to 25. This is because UEFA rules stipulate each team must have eight locally-trained senior players and Spurs have fallen short of that figure in their current squad. It is why they have named four goalkeepers, including academy graduates Alfie Whiteman and Brandon Austin.
The shortage of homegrown players since the likes of Harry Kane, Harry Winks and Oliver Skipp left the club in the past year or so meant Spurs had to name that reduced squad, which led to Postecoglou leaving out Djed Spence and Sergio Reguilon. It is a particularly jarring scenario for Spence, who has played twice for them in the Premier League this season already and was instrumental in the comeback to beat Coventry City last week in the Carabao Cup.
“It was always going to be a difficult decision. With the make-up of our squad currently and the lack of club-trained players, we were always going to have to leave someone out,” Postecoglou said after the squad had been confirmed. “Djed was the unfortunate one but at the same time, Djed has already played in the Premier League. If you’d ask him at the start of the season where he sees himself, the fact he is part of our squad and will obviously play a huge part of the year as he has already, I don’t think he should take too much disappointment.
“Obviously he wants to play, but in the end it was about team balance for us. We just feel with the squad we’ve got, we’ve got some cover on the right, players who can cover on the left, and I always tend to go for more attacking players in those scenarios.”
Fraser Forster is the second-choice goalkeeper behind Guglielmo Vicario. The 36-year-old’s discomfort with playing out from the back was evident in that tie against Championship side Coventry. In the game’s opening minute, he misplaced a pass towards Lucas Bergvall on the edge of the box that nearly led to Jack Rudoni scoring. Vicario will surely be needed against stronger opposition but he cannot be expected to play twice every week until February.
There are only seven defenders in the Europa League squad and they will need to be managed carefully to ensure nobody is handed too heavy a workload. Archie Gray will provide cover for Pedro Porro at right-back while Radu Dragusin can rotate with Cristian Romero. Ben Davies could fill in for Destiny Udogie or Micky van de Ven.
Postecoglou has a dilemma in attack, with Wilson Odobert and Richarlison currently recovering from injuries. They were working in the gym on Wednesday while the rest of the squad took part in training outside. Richarlison’s absence will place a greater strain on £65million ($86.6m) club-record signing Dominic Solanke, but it might present 19-year-old fellow striker Lankshear with an opportunity.
Lankshear impressed during this summer’s pre-season tour to Japan and South Korea and is back in first-team training following a hamstring injury. Playing competitive football in the Europa League would be the perfect opportunity for him and winger Moore, 17, to develop. Don’t forget that Kane’s first goal for the club came as an 18-year-old in a 4-0 win over Irish side Shamrock Rovers in the Europa League in December 2011.
The alternative option is to play Son Heung-min or Dejan Kulusevski up front, but they need as much rest as Solanke. Kulusevski has been Tottenham’s brightest player in the first month or so of the season operating in a central attacking midfield role and it would be a shame to move him around when he is building momentum. And Son might be too busy playing out wide twice a week, along with Brennan Johnson, because of Odobert’s hamstring injury and Timo Werner’s lack of form.
Odobert’s hamstring injury restricts Spurs’ options (Mike Egerton/Getty Images)
The one area of the pitch that is not a cause for concern is central midfield.
Even if Rodrigo Bentancur receives a lengthy domestic ban for his comments about Son, he will still be allowed to play in European matches. Postecoglou could select the Uruguay international in all of the Europa League fixtures, keeping Yves Bissouma fresh for the Premier League. Bergvall has shown flashes of creativity and brilliance in his cameo appearances so far in his debut season and it will be exciting to see what he can offer from the start while Pape Sarr rounds out a talented midfield.
Postecoglou did point out before facing Qarabag that, during his first 12 months in charge, the squad has been evolved to contain more players “robust enough to play our kind of football”. That will be put to the test in the next four months when plenty of them will be playing twice a week.
The other factor that is important to consider is that this is a young squad with limited experience of playing in the European competitions. Udogie, Van de Ven and Johnson headline a group of players who have never appeared at this level before. Postecoglou, who managed previous club Celtic in all three UEFA competitions, believes facing teams with “eight different styles” will be an “interesting challenge”.
The overall message was that this tournament should be embraced, despite the gruelling schedule and travel associated with a schedule that features games in Hungary (Ferencvaros), Turkey (Galatasaray), Scotland (Rangers) and Germany (Hoffenheim).
“Whenever you can expose individuals or the group to different environments, there’s greater opportunity for growth,” Postecoglou said in his press conference on Wednesday. “Whether it’s playing an opponent you’ve never played before, or in a country or a stadium with a different kind of atmosphere. All those things present opportunities for growth and that’s what European competition enables you to do.
“I kept saying last year, if we had been in Europe we would have been able to evolve a bit quicker in terms of what we expose our players to, especially with a young group. For a lot them, it will be their first time in European competition. For us as a group, it will be the first time. The squad has changed a lot in the last 12 months. For all those reasons I see it as a fantastic opportunity to evolve as a team in a footballing sense and hopefully gets us closer to our goal.”
(Top photo: Zac Goodwin/PA Images via Getty Images)
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