Tottenham Hotspurs boss Ange Postecoglou previews Brighton in his last press conference of the season
24/05/2025
Tottenham Hotspurs Training Ground, London, UK
24/05/2025
Tottenham Hotspurs Training Ground, London, UK
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00:00Family time and finding some quiet spot that's got some water and some sun lounge and not
00:12too much movement will do me, just mainly family time and just, like I said, time to
00:20reflect, not just for myself but for my wife and my kids, just pretty chilled and laid
00:27back and, you know, it's one of those things where you probably don't realise
00:32till you stop how tired you are, you know, physically and emotionally and I'm sure
00:39that'll hit me on a Monday morning.
00:40You said that the support you had from the players in particular made what was a tough situation,
00:46it stopped being even worse than we could imagine, but were there any times in the season
00:50where you thought, I think I might have had enough of this and if so, who or what sort
00:55of brought you back from that way of thinking?
00:57No, I'm not by that way, I mean, you know, it's fair to say, and I've said it, I love
01:02a challenge, so the harder it gets, it just, but there were times this year when I thought
01:07how many more challenges, particularly with our injury situation, I mean, it just seemed
01:11to be never ending, you know, and, you know, the start of the year was a lot of sort of
01:15muscle injuries and we were kind of trying to get on top of that and improve our processes,
01:20I thought we did that and then all of a sudden we get guys, you know, doing knees and ankles
01:24and all kinds of things and I just felt, you know, will this ever stop, will this challenge
01:31get any greater than what it always has, already has been, you know, because I've always felt
01:35that, you know, at some point if you get through the tough stuff, you hit some calmer waters
01:41and it's all for a purpose and a reason, but there were, there were just times, even
01:46right up to the final, when we lost, you know, Decky after losing matters and Lucas, I just
01:52thought, when will this end, you know, so, but within that, I never felt like, ah, this
02:00is just too much, like I said, I've just, it's not how I'm built and, you know, there was
02:05never any moment, you know, I said, I've said to a few people, even in the most lowest
02:11of times, I still had this thing inside me, we were going to do something special this
02:15year, I just really believed it and, ah, and you can ask, you know, the guys in there that
02:20every time we got hit with a sort of roadblock, the one thing I kept saying to them, it's just
02:26going to make the story better, so, and it has.
02:29Just a little bit, perhaps in terms of, if you go off the holiday on Monday, it doesn't
02:33be a lot of time to have any talks with, with the club, but if things aren't resolved, will
02:39you be able to relax on that Sunday or just by the water?
02:42Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh, don't worry about that, I'm, I'm, I'm good at relaxing, mate, don't,
02:47come Monday I won't have a care in the world, I won't have a care in the world, um, but, ah,
02:51I assume I'll have an indication at some point, ah, only because, you know, there's some
02:57serious planning to do, more than anything else, um, so, um, but, um, I won't have any
03:03problems switching off.
03:05George?
03:06I had, um, yesterday was enjoyed by so many fans, you obviously knew you were a manager
03:11of a big club, but when you see occasions like that, does it kind of reaffirm it, kind
03:16of like, awoke and asleep, enjoy it?
03:18Um, yeah, look, I, yeah, I was, I was overwhelmed by, kind of, just the, the sea of people, you
03:26know, and, and I said before, just every demographic you could think of, and, um, yeah, there was
03:30grown men crying, you know, um, you know, you know, women just, sort of, girls and boys
03:40and everyone just so ecstatic, you just feel like, irrespective of what is happening in their
03:47lives at the moment, they all just were so joyous.
03:52Like I said, when you see the sheer magnitude of the numbers, you just realise that, you
03:56know, it's, it's a massive club and, you know, I, I, I had a sense of that before I joined,
04:02but, um, I guess, even for the club itself, it just reaffirms that, you know, that missing
04:10piece of success, what it can do in terms of, um, you know, galvanising at the supporter
04:16base and, and really showing, you know, the size of, the size of the club and, uh, it's
04:21fair to say it's a massive club and the opportunity now is to make it bigger than ever.
04:26Yeah, look, you learn from every season, um, you know, like I said, I think looking back
04:46at our pre-season last year, I don't think it was ideal and there's certain things that
04:50we need to do differently and certainly design differently for, for the coming year, um, you
04:55know, how we kind of get our guys ready for, for, for what's going to be, you know, the
05:01biggest challenge of, of, you know, Premier League and Champions League football, we know
05:05it's a massive challenge, so, you know, how we prepare our players, I think our players
05:10will be better equipped, um, you know, we started the season, I mean, we, people forget
05:14we signed Dom who's been unbelievable for us, but then we signed three teenagers, you
05:18know, they weren't ready for, for what was ahead, they've been unbelievable, um, you know,
05:23obviously Wilson's missed a lot of the season, but Lucas and Archie, unbelievable, we signed
05:27three teenagers now, next year, the start of next year, they're not going to be teenagers,
05:30they're more than ready, so we'll be in a better space straight away, um, and I think,
05:35you know, that's the other lesson learned is that we can't, I don't think anyway, that
05:39would be my sort of, um, direction is you, you, you need to now bring in some, some
05:45experience for this group, right, in terms of our recruiting, so that changes as well,
05:49you learn some lessons from that as well, but, um, you know, I think, I think, I said
05:54it all along, I've still felt there's been growth this year, and we'll be much better
05:57placed, uh, at the beginning of next year, to tackle what's ahead than we were at the
06:00start of this one, and, um, as you pointed out to me today, my son is very happy, I suppose,
06:05so I'm excited to go to the Champions League final for the next season, in Budapest, and
06:10Puskas Arena, so, um, are they allowed to dream about that, and that's what you said?
06:15Yeah, dream on, yeah, why not, why not, um, that's the beauty of football, um, you've got
06:21a dream, Alice?
06:23Um, I suppose, perhaps, not the years you've kind of done throughout your career, but,
06:28I suppose this club for, you know, 10 or 15 years has been caught in this kind of debate
06:32on whether, is it top four, top five, is it winning trophies, kind of, where does this
06:38club sit, what should they prioritize, was that kind of experience yesterday, I see if
06:43fans helped to reaffirm the players, the club, the fans, you know, what winning the trophy
06:50really means?
06:52Yeah, I, I'm not sure they've had any other parades for finishing third or fourth or second
06:59or, I've always believed winning trophies is what football club's about, because that's
07:05what you remember, that's what football careers are about, I've said the players, you know,
07:10at the end of your career, the most common question you get asked is, did you play for
07:16your country and did you win anything, you know, and then maybe people might say, well,
07:19what was the individual score goals, you win trophies, like individual trophies, how much
07:23money did you make, all that, but if you can say yes to those two key questions, I played
07:29for my country and I won things, then your career all of a sudden is much more validated
07:34and it's the same for football clubs, I believe, you know, what you put in your sort of museums
07:42and up on your walls are trophies.
07:46Now, against the backdrop of that, this club has to obviously finish, you know, in high
07:52positions and be challenging for Premier League honours for sure and there's financial implications
07:56with not being in Europe, I get all that.
07:58But to me, what defines a club is always what it's won and I think yesterday is, you know,
08:07credit to the club who has had a lot of success compared to other clubs, it just hasn't happened
08:13in recent times.
08:14Have you kind of let the, I suppose you've given yourself a moment to think about the
08:21journey that you've been on throughout your career over the past time, two or three days
08:26from Australia all the way up to now and all the influences that you've had along the way,
08:32the way you found yourself yesterday, as I say, in front of that, see what kind of people
08:36did, have you given yourself that moment to think?
08:38No, no, and you know, I don't know, I've always done that my sort of whole career, I have,
08:48unless I sort of get drawn into it when people start talking to me about it, I don't think
08:52about it a lot, I think, you know, when I get to the end of my career I'll kind of, you
08:57know, have more time to understand how I ended up in this place from where I started, but I
09:04tend to sort of just leave the moments in sort of perfect periods of time, it's like
09:11I've never re-watched, I'll never re-watch Bilbao, I've never re-watched any significant
09:16game I've won in my career, because if I do I'll stop picking holes into the performance
09:20and I don't want to do that, it's a perfect memory for me, I don't care, you know, people
09:24say we didn't play well, it doesn't bother me, you know, for me that night will stay in
09:28my memory forever is a perfect night, and then I kind of leave that, you know, in its
09:34rightful place and move on to what the next thing is, but, you know, at some point, you
09:41know, if you chart the course of my last sort of 26 years and beyond from where I started,
09:49it's fair to say it's a pretty rare sort of journey I've been on, I feel pretty lucky
09:55to have been on it.
09:56And, you know, the goal scorer on the night, Brent Johnson, he's had a kind of difficult
10:02journey this season, earlier on this season, he deactivated his social media accounts and
10:07stuff, to where he came obviously in the final, kind of, if you can just kind of put into context
10:16what his contribution means to the club, to himself, I suppose, when he's been able
10:23to deliver such a huge occasion.
10:25Yeah, and, you know, Brennan's kind of indicative of what I've been trying to build here is about,
10:32you know, people of character, people of resilience, and like I said, he hasn't had it easy, but it's
10:39been surprising to me because actually his contribution has been significant from the time we signed him.
10:44I mean, you know, you stack up his record since he's been here to any other winger,
10:48apart from Mo, who's a freak, and Brennan stands up, goals, assists, I mean, that's what, you know,
10:55that's what you need from attacking players, and not just in any games, in big games as well.
11:00And it's a credit to him, and again, fair to say he was one of the ones that's enjoyed himself
11:06the last couple of days, but rightly so.
11:09And I'm hoping that, you know, him doing that on such a big stage, that's just, you know,
11:14he comes back next year with, you know, some mentality monster of, you know what, I know what it takes to win,
11:22and this is what I want again, and that feeds on to everyone else.
11:25So, I mean, that's hope, or your hope, you know, Wednesday night creates, is that all these guys
11:30have got a taste of it now, and, you know, want more of it.
11:34Okay. Thank you very much.
11:36Thanks.
11:37Thanks.
11:38Thanks.