LONDON (Reuters) – Tottenham Hotspur are top of the Premier League and unbeaten in the top flight this season but their manager Ange Postecoglou said on Thursday he was happy to leave title dreams to the fans.
Spurs’ win at Crystal Palace last Friday was their fourth in a row and they next face a struggling Chelsea side on Monday, but their Australian boss is not getting carried away.
“I’m not so much a dreamer, I’m very much in the reality of day to day and what’s important to us,” Postecoglou told reporters.
“I thought we coped well with the challenge we had the other night but we know there’s another challenge for us on Monday night. Thinking beyond that doesn’t really serve any purpose.”
Despite keeping his feet firmly on the ground, the manager does not mind the Tottenham faithful getting carried away by their excellent start to the season.
“The supporters, by all means, this is their football club and they’ve got to enjoy their football club if things are going well and it provides them with hopes and dreams and aspirations.
“But my task is more the mundane day to day.”
Spurs face a stiff test in maintaining their unbeaten run as they now face Chelsea, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Newcastle United in their next six games.
“It’s just part of the challenge. Again you can list those games and you can think about them collectively or you can just concentrate on the biggest challenge for us, which is Chelsea on Monday night,” the Spurs coach said.
“All those things take care of themselves if you deal with the day to day process. It’s really important for us, and I’ve emphasised this to the players, to stay in the present.”
GOOD POSITION
Spurs have a two point lead over Arsenal and Manchester City with Liverpool a further point back in fourth. Chelsea are in 11th place, 14 points behind the leaders.
With Tottenham not playing until Monday, Arsenal, City and Liverpool all have a chance to move ahead of the north London side but Postecoglou’s focus is not on the league table.
“We’re in a good position and we obviously want to stay there, but it’s not the driver for where we are at the moment as a team,” he said.
“For us, while we’re building a way of playing, a way of training, a lot of new players being incorporated into where we are as a football club at the moment, our mindset just needs to be on tackling each challenge and really focusing on ourselves.”
Postecoglou also gave an update on the injury situation.
“Everyone got through the Palace game okay. Ben Davies, who came off at halftime, still has a bit of an ankle problem and hasn’t trained with the team yet so he’s touch and go,” he said.
Fellow left back Destiny Udogie started the first nine league games this season but missed the win over Palace with a muscle injury picked up in the previous game with Fulham.
“Destiny is still working through it, we haven’t ruled him out yet. That’s probably 50-50 at this stage as to whether he’ll be available,” added the Tottenham manager.
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes; Editing by Ken Ferris)
