Ange Postecoglou held his pre-match press conference at Hotspur Way on Tuesday ahead of Tottenham's Carabao Cup semi-final first leg clash against Liverpool.

There was plenty to discuss for the Spurs boss following the signing of goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky from Slavia Prague with the 21-year-old arriving on Sunday in a deal that could be worth around £12.5million with add-ons. The north London club also announced on Tuesday morning that they have taken up the extra one-year option in Son Heung-min's contract.

There was also the latest injury news to discuss for Postecoglou as well the prospect of facing Liverpool again so soon after the goal-laden 6-3 defeat at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last month.

READ MORE: Pep Guardiola sends brutal Jack Grealish message as Tottenham transfer twist confirmed

READ MORE: Managing Tottenham: Kolo Muani decision, Tomori deal, Eze offer and shock Chelsea interest

Our Spurs correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou. Here's the full transcript from the press conference at Hotspur Way.

What's the latest team news? Any good news?

It depends, net wise we are still down. We will get Bentancur back but we lose Maddison and Sarr by suspension. A couple of numbers down there.

In terms of injuries no-one is back. Mikey (Moore) could potentially be available on the bench. Everyone else from the weekend certainly feel better, Radu (Dragusin) has recovered, Archie (Gray) is better. They were the main ones. Deki (Kulusevski) was under the weather but he is good. Pretty much as it was on the weekend plus Bentancur minus the other two.

Is Richarlison back in training?

He is training. The whole plan with him, with what has happened this year, was to give him two full solid weeks of training. His second week will be next week and if he gets through that he will be fine.

With Son's contract extension, how pleased are you about that?

Yeah brilliant. He has already had an outstanding career at this football club. He has played a big role in the last 10 years. Made an impact at the club and in the Premier League. Great to extend his stay and the aim is to make sure he finishes his Tottenham career with silverware.

With Antonin Kinsky, will he start against Liverpool tomorrow?

We will see. He arrived on Sunday I think. He has had a couple of days of training. He is registered and eligible to play. We still have got to do a couple final things with him and then we will see.

Do you have tough decisions on your goalkeepers going forward?

He is one that we had earmarked for the end of the season to bring in during the summer. We’ve tracked him all season and he is definitely someone we are really excited about. Obviously, with our current goalkeeping situation - we explored the possibility of bringing him in this January. It wasn’t easy because he is doing very well for his club, his club is doing well, they are in Europe and top of their league. The club worked really hard to get the deal done in this window and it is a huge benefit to us and adds real quality to our goalkeepers.

Do you want a forward as Spurs have been linked with Randal Kolo Muani?

Look, we are still trying to help the squad and help the players. We are still down significant numbers. We will have roughly 10 first team players missing tomorrow. That’s not easy so we are still looking to try to help the playing group. The club is working hard in a number of areas.

The league form is not spectacular so is a cup distraction some respite?

Yes, our league results have been poor. There is no hiding from that. It is a separate competition tomorrow night. We have done well to get to the semi-final stage. We’ve beaten some Manchester clubs to do that. It hasn’t been an easy road to the semi-finals. We’ve got an opponent that has been the standout performers in all competitions. So it is a great test for us, but it is a semi-final first leg and should be exciting. I am looking forward to it.

They scored six past you last time? Do you need to hang in there to set up a second leg?

I think, yes, that’s the case irrespective of how you play. There is a second leg to be played. That doesn’t change our approach tomorrow. We’re at home and in a two-legged affair, if you can get some kind of advantage in your home game, you are set up pretty well so that’s what we will try to do.

Fans are to be explained VAR decisions by the referee tomorrow, do you welcome that?

Do I welcome it? No.

Is it fair that they should be able to listen?

No. Do you think if they had shown the handball at the weekend, that our supporters would have been happy? Would they have come away saying 'ah that's great, they explained it'? But at the same time, I have to accept that it's coming in. I have to accept that this is the way forward. I have to accept that I have to be a part of that. But it shouldn't surprise anyone if I am not a sort of cheerleader for those kinds of things.

Antonin Kinsky comes from a similar background to Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall in that he's also from a footballing family, seems very level headed and knows what he wants, how important is that nature within a player?

I think it's a big part. We've put stock in that in the current players that we've brought in. We're trying to build a team of people who are very ambitious and have a clear goal in their heads about how they want their career to go.

We've seen that already with Lucas and Archie. It's much about their performance but also the way they've embraced the whole challenge, it's certainly not like your normal 18-year-olds. They've shown a real maturity and also an ambition to make an impact. Talking to Tony and looking into his background, he's very much of a similar mould.

With Antonin, it seems like he's very confident with the ball at his feet, have you seen that in training and how important will that be to the way you play?

We've to pick players and goalkeepers that fit our system and the way we play and it's certainly something that he does very comfortably, but you know it's his all-round goalkeeping ability. Johan and his scouts have done a lot of background work on him, they've been following him all year. The intent was to bring him in in the summer, but obviously that not only changed, we thought why not with the way we are in terms of the goalkeepers to try and bring in him earlier.

I wasn't confident that was going to happen, but the club worked really hard to make it happen, and I think it's great for him, it's great for us. It gives him an opportunity to come in a bit earlier and get bedded into the way we do things and it also adds real quality to our goalkeeping.

At left-back you've got Destiny out for a while, Djed is filling in and you've got Sergio Reguilon coming to the end of his contract, is that a position you are going to try to ride through or would you like to bring another body in that area as well?

It depends. We're in a tricky situation where we've got - obviously Ben Davies can play left-back as well - so you know we're in this tricky situation where potentially we could have three very, very good defenders coming back into the fold very, very quickly. Obviously Destiny's going to be a bit longer, so it's a bit of a balancing act of how much we can get through.

I just don't want to get it [wrong]. You know, the beauty of bringing in somebody like Toni was that he was part of our plans anyway. I'm really reluctant just to bring in another body just for the sake of it. It's got to be somebody who either fits into what we're doing or he's going to help us straight away. They're the kind of criteria we're looking at.

Has this period given you a bit of a time to reset and look at signings and who's coming back and get a better picture of what the rest of the season will look like?

I kind of knew it would be a tough couple of months for us, but part of you is always optimistic that we won't have to deal with what we had to deal with for as long as we've had to deal with it. So again, optimistically, I think we'll get through this and I think we'll get through it hopefully pretty quickly. We're getting into the tail end, which just gives you a chance to say 'OK, what's the second half of the season going to look like for us?'.

But at the same time, I can't lose sight of the fact that what's important for us right now is that we deal with what's in front of us. We've got a big game tomorrow night. Obviously then FA Cup, you know, our league form's nowhere near good enough. We've got to address that, so we can't just wait for it to all happen, so the planning is going on in the background for sure, but my immediate task is to make sure we make an impact in what we can right now.

What did you make of the Manchester United and Liverpool game? Do you think it's a nice time to play them?

I don't know if it's a nice time to play them. I thought it was a good game and I thought Manchester United really lifted their intensity levels and caused them problems, but at the same time, Liverpool, you can still see the quality they possess. They still created opportunities, they're always a threat. They're a top side, they're really settled. I think they've got just about everyone fit and healthy. They can rotate players, so they're in a good moment and it's going be a great challenge for us.

You've got a goalkeeping decision to make, how do you go about that with Brandon Austin as well?

Yeah, again just got to assess it on how Toni settled in and like I said, Brandon did really well for us, which is great, and then I'll just make a decision. We've still got a couple of European games again where Toni's not gonna be involved, so we understand that Brandon - and Fraser's back training today - they're still very important to what we're doing.

Listen to the latest episode of Gold & Guest Talk Tottenham by clicking here for in-depth Spurs chat on your preferred podcast platform.

Want breaking and top Tottenham stories sent straight to you? Join our Spurs WhatsApp community by clicking this link. If you're curious you can check out our privacy policy here.