Every word Ange Postecoglou said on what he's doing to ensure fewer Tottenham injuries

Any new injuries?

Nothing else from the weekend in terms of injuries. Everyone has pulled up really well, there are no issues there. Obviously apart from the injuries, the obvious absences are Romero, Spence and Reguilon, who trained today but for different reasons are ineligible.

How much are you looking forward to being back in European competition?

I am really pleased to be back there and excited to be back in it. I spoke about it last year that it was a real gap in our calendar and didn't help us at certain times of the year not having regular football, that challenge of playing different types of opposition and exposing our whole squad to some meaningful game-time. And the worst thing was sitting around watching other teams play in it. It didn't sit right with me so being back in a European competition is important.

This is an expanded competition, Son has mentioned player welfare, do you echo what Son and Rodrigo are saying about expanded format in this competition?

Well, not specifically to this competition. I have spoken already about the fact we're getting to a real dangerous level about what our expectations are around players. Instead of focusing on one or two tournaments, it's about the calendar. That is more of an issue. Players don't get a break between seasons any more like they used to. There are more tournaments both at club level, international level and continental level. So, it's going to get to a point where we are not going to have the best players out there playing and more even worst them breaking down for various reasons. It's definitely something that needs to be addressed.

You said players will take things into their own hands before, what does that look like?

I said players may take, I didn't say they will. I said they may take things into their own hands. It's about they're the ones most affected to be honest so you would understand if they started to think about as a collective, how much are we going to have to continually not have a say in and it's like anything in life I guess if you are affected. And it is the players who are affected. We have a responsibility as clubs, as managers as well that we protect our players as well. It's the reason we have squads. We have to be mindful that we can't on the one hand bemoan the fact we have so many games but we want to be in all competitions but we don't use our squads because we end up complicit with that.

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We saw Arsenal would come here and win without the ball, then an extreme version of that in the second half against Manchester City, albeit with 10 men, could we could go back to the time in football where you don't need to have the ball to compete at the very highest level?

I think football's always going going in those cycles. I think there's always been sort of dominant teams who are more sort of possession-heavy and other times where it's been teams that, as you said, require less of the ball.

I think in football there's always that kind of counterbalance what can be successful at any given time. A lot of that comes down to I think the strength of teams that execute that. If you get the best teams who have a period of domination playing a certain way, it invariably means that others try and follow that method and it hits the flip side and then it goes the other way.

So I've always felt there's always been a kind of cycle that football goes through, where a certain kind of tactical play ends up dominating for a period of time until somebody comes along and comes up with something different and then changes.

People seem to be congratulating Arsenal on their way of playing and using the dark arts, your team plays entertaining football and that's how you're going to win a trophy this season or at some other point, how come you don't have to use dark arts?

You make it sound like it’s good versus evil, Batman versus… whoever, I don’t know, I don’t know my superheroes that well.

Look, I think it’s just part of the game and it’s always existed. I’ve said before I don’t believe in the dark arts, I don’t know how to do it, it’s just not in my make-up, but I’ve seen it be a very effective tool.

My thing has always been if teams are going to go down that way, we need to be even more disciplined to make sure we don’t get distracted by that.

Ultimately, the role of every manager and every team is to try to unsettle an opposition one way or another. Some do it by trying to disrupt and curtail any momentum from the opposition. Others want the momentum, they want the dominance. It depends what side of the coin you fall down.

The reason I do what I do is because that’s the space I’m comfortable in, I know how to do that. To change my approach would mean to delve into an area that I don’t really have a lot of emphasis in the way I coach or the way I talk.

The competition has changed, it's now eight games but no Champions League drop-ins, Spurs are also favourites, what are your thoughts on all that?

I think it is interesting. Obviously early stages and it will be interesting to see how it develops. I said it before just a gut feeling that there will be more in the games. You know in the group stage, after about the second or third game you kind of knew who were going through so there were maybe some dead-rubbers in there, but all games will be meaningful because all teams will have something to play for. It's not that standard home and away, you will play eight different teams, eight different styles of football, so it's an interesting challenge. I guess at the end we'll see if it's had the effect everyone wanted it to have by being more exciting all the way through rather than the knock-out phase, but the most important thing is we're in it and because we're in it, we've got a chance.

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I am from an Azerbaijani news agency, you have probably watched recent Qarabag games, which players are you most concerned about?

We've had a very good look at them. We had someone fly out at the weekend and watch them play. They are a very good team, they dominate the local competition, but just as importantly in Europe they've always made an impact. We had a good look at their two games against Leverkusen, they did very well and pushed Leverkusen all the way. We all know how well Leverkusen were last year, so it's not about individuals, it's about understanding and making sure we reach the level of performance we do against a very good, experienced European opponent. I think experience in Europe counts and Qarabag have been their consistency whether it's Champions League or Europa League and always made an impact. We'll be ready for that.

The English press say Tottenham will play attacking football towards Qarabag, is that true? Or will you take a more cautious approach.

Never believe the English press... don't make that mistake. We'll just play our football. I think Europe gives us another challenge because European football you are meeting teams who probably play a little differently. Obviously tomorrow it is at home but sometimes you will face up to conditions you wouldn't normally face up to. I think it will help us develop as a team by facing some different types of opposition, but ultimately it is about playing our football, being as aggressive as we can and hopefully overcoming the challenge Qarabag will have tomorrow.

James Maddison seems to be playing a slightly deeper role, can you tell us what you're seeing from him in that position?

I wouldn’t say he’s changed his role, he’s doing exactly the same as last year. I think if you look back early last year, very similar. I’ve said all along the key to Madders is if he’s physically good and he’s getting to that level of where he’s able to cover ground to receive the ball wherever we need him to, whether that’s deep or wide, but then the ability to really beat players on the dribble and then contribute to attacking play, not just one phase of play.

He’s getting involved in two, three phases of play. To do that physically that’s really important for Madders. If you look back to early last year he was doing very similar things for us to what he was doing at the weekend. It was only when he was came back from injury that he kind of struggled because I don’t think physically he was where he needed to be. He’s had a good, strong pre-season and I can just sense every game he’s feeling better and better about how he’s feeling. When he does that I think he’s able then to play the role we need him to.

You had that awful period of injuries last season and you said you would look to adjust training, what have you done to fix that?

We’re constantly reviewing and we’ve made changes in both the sports science and the medical departments. We’ve evolved the squad to get players who we believe are going to be robust enough to play our kind of football.

Part of that process is the ability to then rotate and not overburden too many players within the squad. You’ve already seen the significant injuries to other teams. We’ve spoken about the calendar that players are having to bear. Part of our process is to hopefully have a robust enough squad to cope with everything but also to utilise that squad in the right way so we minimise the injuries that hopefully we can control.

Some injuries you can’t control, but in terms of our approach, we’re still training as hard as we did last year, trying to play the same football. Our physical numbers are still as good if not stronger than they were last year in games, which is our barometer, but we’ve hopefully got a more robust squad and our process to recovery and the way we’re looking after players is a bit different.

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Have the changes to the Europa League made it as possible to rotate and give players game time they need?

Yeah, I think so. I think as I said, we have a squad of players that we've gone into the season thinking that we're going to potentially, hopefully play 50 plus games in a year, and you're not going to expect, hardly any players to play in all those 50 games. If you can get sort of 30/35 games out of everybody.

Your European games, your cup games are an opportunity for us to develop players and get them ready. What you don't want to do is make too many changes every game we did that obviously against Coventry because we needed to, but that tends to disrupt.

But this early part of the season, I think it is important that we give some game time to guys so that when we need to make changes and we will need to, it's not bringing in players who haven't played for six or eight weeks.

They played two weeks ago, so if we make changes tomorrow night, the guys coming in played against Coventry a week ago that it's not like they haven't played for four or five weeks. So I still think that you have that opportunity in the Europa.

Do you have a preference for a trophy, like Premier League top and Europa League second?

No, we want to win everything mate, so no preference.

How do you look at European competition?

I tend to look more from my role. In terms of revenue and prestige it helps the club but just from a footballing perspective it’s a different challenge to what you face in the Premier League and even cup competitions for the most part. Whenever you can expose individuals or the group to different environments there’s greater opportunity for growth. 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. For us, I kept saying last year if we had have 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.

With no drop-outs from the Champions League in the knockout stages, does that make it easier?

Whenever you are in this kind of competition you never look beyond the first part of it. Getting out of the group and then in the knock out stages looking at potential match ups, whose left. Last year that was teams dropping down but that’s when you get a decent idea of where you sit and likely outcomes but it’s only really the knockout phase you focus on what sort of opposition do you have here. The challenge is still the same. It doesn’t necessarily make it easier because if somehow it’s easier for us I assume it’s easier for all the other teams that are strong in this competition. I don’t think that changes.

It’s a unique format, it’s different. God knows how you look at that table in one screenshot because it’s 36 teams and trying to work out where everyone sits will be a challenge. For us, we’ve got eight really good games and an opportunity to progress from there.

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