Postecoglou says Europa League a ‘great opportunity’ for Spurs

Ange Postecoglou believes the Europa League provides Tottenham Hotspur with a “great opportunity” to revive a faltering campaign, with key players set to return for Thursday’s last-16 first-leg tie at Dutch side AZ Alkmaar.

Dominic Solanke, Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero’s lengthy absences have hampered a Spurs side languishing in 13th place in the Premier League table, with the north London club also knocked out of both domestic cup competitions.

Tottenham have yet to win a major trophy since lifting the 2008 League Cup while they last enjoyed European success with their 1984 triumph in the UEFA Cup—the forerunner of the Europa League.  

But Spurs, the first English club to win significant continental silverware with victory in the 1963 final of the now defunct European Cup Winners’ Cup, are looking to the continent to maintain manager Postecoglou’s record of second-season success established at the Australian’s former teams.

“Yeah, I think it is fair to say the boys really understand there is a great opportunity for us,” Postecoglou told a pre-match press conference on Wednesday.

“It’s a competition we obviously want to do well in. We’ve got ourselves in a good position. We’re in the round of 16, we’ve got two tough games against AZ and that’s the first thing to overcome.”

Postecoglou, who refused to be drawn into whether any of Van de Ven, Romero or Solanke would start, added: “The club hasn’t in recent years done well in this competition, but it’s a major European competition, we’re in the last 16 and for us there’s an opportunity there and we’ll see how far we can go in it.

“With us tomorrow night, we’ve got to make sure whatever happens at the end of the game, we’ve still got an opportunity to go back to Tottenham and win the tie.

“We understand with the home support — I’ve been here with Celtic in a Europa game, so I know the experience of it and they’re a good side — but we’ve got to make sure we play our football and dictate the tempo of the game to make sure we take a result back to Tottenham.”