What did you make of the main talking points involving VAR?
They are decisions that I think they should explain and not leaving us in front of you, and us explaining things that many, many times we don’t find any explanation to it. So I prefer not to speak about it. I see Scott as a good referee. He had the opportunity to go to the screen and watch on the screen the same thing we watched on the bench on our iPad. He should explain but I know that’s not going to happen so let’s move on and speak about a very difficult match that we won.
Great to see Gareth Bale straight on to the pitch and scoring, is he showing you those flashes that make you think it’s great to have him back here?
I told already for about a week or so, I’m saying he’s improving. It’s not just by watching him, the data supports our training process. We knew. The good thing is Gareth also knows. We share ideas and share feelings. He doesn’t have 90 minutes of a Premier League match in his legs yet so we’re using the Europa League to complement his training process. We are using some matches in the Premier League when we decide to play him and the normal tendency for him will be of course to be better and better and better. That’s it. He will start again on Thursday and even in a Europa League match when the intensity is different to the Premier League I will not play him for 90 minutes. I always will have this care with him until we feel that he’s ready. Today great impact, very important goal for us and after that he joined Harry in a very experienced way to play the last 15 minutes of the game, both very clever, very intelligent, both very good, holding the ball, bringing the ball to zones where they couldn’t hurt us. So I’m very pleased for him, but very pleased especially for him because he deserves that. When I have 5 minutes I’m going to Safari to look at Madrid websites to see what they say.
You are so pleased for him, is it a beautiful moment to respond to criticism?
He knows we care about him and we know he cares about us, the team and the club, Spurs. He’s the perfect fit, he’s very calm, very intelligent, he has good feelings. He had bad feelings before, because the training process was hard, and his body was suffering a little bit, but we gave him what he needs as a whole. I am speaking about sports science, medical, my assistants, the other players. I’m very pleased for him to score this winning goal.
Were you anxious at the end after recent match endings here?
You are always but I wasn’t much. Anything can happen in football. For example, these boys from Brighton lost a game to Manchester United when the game was over, so in football anything can happen. Hugo didn’t make a save, the last 15 minutes we were very much in control, we kept the line up. When Burn was playing striker with Welbeck it was time to bring the line up, up, up and far from the dangerous crossing area. Harry and Gareth kept the ball away from our defensive area. You always fear a result, but the ball was never in a dangerous area for us.
Can I get your opinion on Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Giovani Lo Celso?
Pierre was again a very important man in there, gave us that strength and stability. Moussa worked hard for him, Tanguy to get a yellow card early then you play with fear. To play with fear like Tanguy is hard, he goes for dribbling, he attacks people, he loses the ball, he needs to recover, a second yellow card could arrive, from that moment Tanguy was in trouble. Gio brought that dynamic back to the team for the last 20 minutes. He did well for us. He is a player that needs to work, no pre-season and no end to last season. He needs to recover his fitness levels, it was easy to see against Antwerp, especially to play as a central midfielder he didn’t have that fitness. To play with a Number 10, with that freedom, yes he could help us. Can he play one day together with Tanguy, yes they can but they both need to be physically in a better condition.
You’re now second in the table, you know what it takes to win a Premier League?
We are ready to challenge West Bromwich Albion in the next match. It’s going to be very difficult. They need points – Slaven clever guy, lots of experienced players. It’s going to be very difficult. We are going to be ready to challenge them. Your question, I understand. I think we just have to go match after match. We need to learn with our mistakes and understand the PL is going in one direction where every match is very difficult. People’s tendency will always be when one of the top teams loses points, the tendency will always be they didn’t play well. But I believe that Potter and all the guys that coach teams from the second part of the table deserve a lot of credit. Because they work phenomenal, they have very good teams, very good players. So I don’t know what will happen in the Premier League honestly.
What did you make of Brighton and their changes?
The personnel changes, I don’t know. Goalkeeper, he made that decision with the keeper. Maupay not playing, I don’t know if it was his decision or the boy had a problem. They have a very good squad, they can make changes. What for me is analyse is not his choices, is the way the team plays. And I just love the way they play, even during the game they have a capacity to change. They were playing with a three, then we adapted to that and were controlling the game. Then he changed to four, then we took our time to adapt to that. Because sometimes what we can see on the bench, the players can not see on the pitch – and the communication is not very easy. I think they have a very good team, the work is brilliant but at the moment they just don’t have the points adapted to the quality of their game. But for sure they are going to get these points because the team is very good.
