Ange Postecoglou held his FA Cup press conference on Friday as Tottenham prepare to take on non-league Tamworth in the third round.

Spurs will head up to Staffordshire to face National League side Tamworth in Sunday afternoon's lunchtime kick-off and ahead of the game Postecoglou provided an update on Rodrigo Bentancur and the concussion the Uruguayan suffered just six minutes into Wednesday night's 1-0 victory against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg.

He also spoke about various other topics around the club and here is the full transcript from the press conference at Hotspur Way.

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What's the latest team news and how is Rodrigo Bentancur?

I'll start with Rodrigo, mostly positive news, he obviously went to hospital after the game. He was concussed and they did every check needed to do and I understand he's gone home now. So that's real positive news for us because it was a bit of a distressing situation to deal with for everyone.

I think the players, Pedro did a great job initially of notifying the medical team, he did a great job. Now it's just about recovery for him. There are set protocols in place but aside from those set protocols, we'll make sure we give him as much time as he needs to get back.

And then, aside from that, nothing coming out of the other night, everyone got through that pretty well and no one really coming back in from the guys who have been out, apart from Pape and Madders, who are available.

It felt like a real statement win the other night and you saw at the final whistle that connection with the fans and the players and yourself on the pitch again, how much did everyone around the club need that as proof of what this team is capable of?

Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't know about proof, but I think reward is important. I don't think one win changes anything, but we've been through a pretty tough time and as I said, all along not through the want of trying and I mean I can't commend the players highly enough in terms of their efforts.

They've been giving their maximum every week, but obviously without the ultimate reward, and I said after the game, the players, the staff who are doing everything in their power to change our fortunes and our supporters have obviously had to ride through that as well. So just that feeling you get after a win and like you said a significant win against a top team and in a pretty pivotal game for us in terms of keeping our hopes alive of making a cup final. It was important and that kind of stuff sort of fuels hopefully what's ahead.

It's quite a contrast to the next cup match after you play one of the best teams around at the moment in Liverpool now coming up against a non-league team on their pitch, how important is it that everybody has their attitude spot on?

Yeah, absolutely, I've got no doubt the attitude of the players and I think all along the boys have a great understanding of every game's importance and we certainly will go into Sunday's game with the same sort of mindset of making sure that we do things we can control, play our football, put a real big emphasis on the things that we do really well.

That's because there's always challenges out there. I get there's there's a fair difference in terms of the levels of football we're playing at, but I'm sure Tamworth see this as a great opportunity for themselves and we've got to be ready for that.

Have you done anything different with your preparation, given the fact that it's it's an artificial pitch, does that change anything?

Yeah, we'll train on an artificial one tomorrow, on one of ours. I've done that consistently throughout my career, I've kind of experienced a few times in different leagues, even up in Scotland, where you're playing on artificial pitches and it always sort of served a good purpose just to give the players an understanding. They're never always identical, but just what they're going to face on Sunday, so we'll have a session on the artificial one here tomorrow.

You must be relieved there is no VAR in this game after all the games you’ve had it and your comments before and after?

Ah, yeah.

You are relieved?

Was that the question?

It was a question leading into an answer?

My answer is yes. You asked me if I was relieved and I said yes, so…

How relieved?

Look, I had my say after the game and felt I had to because I had to clarify my position on it, but at the same time I am also mindful that I think sometimes I have overstepped the mark because in some of those situations I talk as an individual and as a person who loves the game and is passionate about the game, but I am also representing this football club. I have just to be careful about how much I talk about it and I would rather talk about football to be honest. I think I have had my say on those kind of bits and I’ve left it for other to judge. I would much rather talk about football.

Let’s talk about the FA Cup, it starts on Thursday and ends on Monday, as an outsider do you think we’re losing the tradition of FA Cup?

Ah, look I don’t know but I still think it’s a really important competition for that particular reason that it includes pretty much every tier of football. There are always great storylines within it and already there has been in the early rounds of the cup. I still think FA Cup final day is one of the marque days in the global football calendar and I still feel like it’s a really important tournament that maintains the right kind of tradition. Certainly in my eyes I still see it as a really important part of the football calendar.

For most neutrals, they want Tamworth to win, what can you get out of Sunday?

Yeah but you say there is nothing for us to win, there is something for us to win and that’s to get into the next round of the FA Cup. There is a prize there. We may not get the plaudits but we do get the opportunity to go into the next round. We won’t go into this game with any other mindset than preparing as we always do for a game of football. We will respect the opponent because you always need to respect the opponent. I have enough experiences in my life of being the underdog and I know you are kind of almost hoping the team you play underestimate you but we won’t.”

My colleagues from ITV are at Tamworth's ground now, Astroturf pitch and apparently the dressing room is barely a cabin, how much of a shock will it be for your multi-million pound players?

They are actually not multi-million dollar players, they are human beings. They are very sort of understanding, they are good people so they would never go to a place like that and disrespect it. Most have come from places like that. Some worse, let me tell you. So, I know people want to tag them as multi-million dollars and maybe spoilt but they are human beings and good people. They will go there and respect the fact that Tamworth will build it to be the biggest game of probably their lives and I am sure they will do their best to create an environment where they are proud of their ground, proud of their facilities because that is what they work with and that’s how we’ll treat it on the day. I don’t think that is an issue for us. What’s important is to prepare ourselves for a cup game.

Is there an opportunity to see some of the younger players like Alfie Dorrington, Will Lankshear and Mikey Moore?

No, it gives me an opportunity to pick a team who I think will win a game of football for us. The ones who will play will be the ones who will do that. It’s good getting Mikey (Moore) back and I think it is important we will give him some game time on the weekend but aside from that it will be a time who most importantly we think can get us through to the next round.

Can you tell us a bit about Alfie Dorrington?

Alfie is training with us and he has been around the first-team squad and part of the first-team squad. He had a pretty significant injury which kept him out of football for quite a while. But he is part of the squad and he probably needs to get some game time so we will look for a loan for him.

Is there a balance between putting out a strong team and resting key players like Solanke and Kulusevski?

We have got to be mindful of we don’t want it to turn into a tricky game for us. We want to make sure we play our best. If we can give some rest to some of those guys you said, and having Mikey back helps in that front third for sure, getting Pape and Maddison back helps us in midfield. We are still pretty restricted defensively to be honest but Sergio Reguilon at least he has had some games recently which gives us a chance. In terms of centre-half and right-back we are still pretty limited in terms of what we can do here. In terms of rotation but hopefully we can rest at least a couple of players from a full 90 minutes of football.

What have you made of Radu Dragusin impressing against Liverpool after struggling in the earlier game against them and leading a young defence?

I have said all along that some of our players, at times, are getting unfairly judged at the moment because of the situation we are in. It’s not just that Radu is only 22 and still getting to grips with the Premier League. He would be okay if he was surrounded by players who are playing regularly but he has got an 18-year-old who is not a centre-back next to him. Three different goalkeepers, it is probably up to four, since he has been in the team. Different full-backs.

I just think him and Archie have been unbelievable for us considering the circumstances and we will get growth from that. I really believe that. He was great the other night. He was really focused and disciplined in his organisation and along with Toni [Kinsky] making his debut that is as solid as we have been as back four/back five. Well protected I think the midfield did a great job of working really hard to keep Liverpool.

There won’t be many games where Liverpool create as little as they did the other night and I think that was a real strong collective effort. We are happy with Radu and the way he is developing. He has had to battle. He had an illness last week and he was nowhere near 100 percent. He is probably one who does need a bit of a rest but we have no options there. Every week he mans up and gets on with it.

Do you have an excitement at being in the FA Cup again?

It’s hugely important. Last year we didn’t progress in it. We got through the first round and then dropped out. We want to stay in it. At some point in the next few weeks we will get players back as well and, even though it’s going to mean a congested fixture schedule for us, if we get the players back we are going to come back. I think we will be well placed. We want to stay in the competition and once we get to that moment where we have the squad we need hopefully we can make an impact in it.

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