Antonio Conte has addressed the media ahead of Tottenham‘s meeting with Newcastle United on Sunday.
The Magpies are one of the Premier League’s in-form teams and Spurs, who were comprehensively beaten by Manchester United in midweek, need an immediate reaction before the pressure starts to turn up on Conte once again.
Here’s the highlights of the boss’ press conference.
What’s the latest?
“Not news. Deki Kulusevski is not available. I think we have to wait a bit of time to see him with us. It is the same for Richarlison. The other is Emerson, who comes back after a ban. Then we have another training session tomorrow to try to make an evaluation.
“Now to play many games in such a short period, you have to try to check and speak to the players to understand who needs to have a bit of rest to try to avoid injury. We will see tomorrow and then we’ll make the best decision for the game on Sunday against Newcastle.”
Will Emerson start again now he’s back from suspension?
“This is the last problem for me. If this is the only problem for us, I’m happy. This is not a problem. For me to recover [Emerson] is good news. You know very well this role you lose a lot of energy during the game.
“Now Matthew [Doherty] played with the national team and played two games in a row with us and he played the last three Premier League games. To have the possibility to have an alternative, to play Emerson or Doherty, or also I’m waiting to improve Spence. For me it’s important.
“But I repeat Sunday we’ll see. We have to play against Newcastle and then after three days we have to play in the Champions League, and then after three days we have to play against Bournemouth and then after three days we have to play Champions League again. Who plays is not a problem. The problem is when they go to play they have to play well.”
Do you have a natural replacement for Kulusevski in the squad?
“But for sure, when you have Kulusevski injured and Richarlison injured, then also Lucas Moura recovering from a long tendon injury, now he’s improving but in my opinion he’s not ready to start a game.
“For sure this type of situation creates a big, big difficulty. It’s normal, this. For me, also fingers crossed because at the moment we have Harry and Sonny in good health. I hope they continue to stay that way or I’ll have to think about putting my shoes on to play, me.
“We know with the club the difficulties of the season. Now to complain I think it’s not right or fair. When you go to play Champions…
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