Every word Ange Postecoglou said on Solanke, Son sub reaction plus Romero and Richarlison injuries

Ange Postecoglou has been speaking to reporters following Tottenham Hotspur's impressive 4-1 win against Aston Villa in the Premier League on Sunday.

Villa were ahead at the break after Morgan Rogers fired home from close range from a corner. Spurs equalised early in the second half when Son hit a great low cross into the box and Brennan Johnson slammed it home on the run.

Dominic Solanke then put the home side into the lead. as he tucked away a delightful chipped finish. The move had started with a vital Ben Davies block and then Dejan Kulusevski played a reverse ball through to the £65million striker to score.

Solanke then scored again to make it 3-1 for Tottenham. Pape Matar Sarr won the ball back, played it into Richarlison and he picked out Solanke with a perfect low cross and the striker made no mistake. James Maddison put the cherry on top of the cake with a curling free-kick to make it 4-1 as Emiliano Martinez could only watch the ball sail inside the right-hand post.

Our Spurs correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou after the victory in his press conference at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Here's every single word the Australian said to the assembled media.

READ MORE: Tottenham player ratings vs Aston Villa - Dominic Solanke at the double as Sarr shines

READ MORE: Son reaction to sub, Richarlison injury agony - 5 things spotted in Tottenham vs Aston Villa

What pleased you the most about this performance?

Well I guess just about all of it. You're playing a top team and you know with Villa that they're always going to have a real strong performance because they're very, very consistent. They rarely have off days and you've got to be ready for that.

I thought we had to match it with them in the first half. We had to sort of draw on their energy and make them work really hard. Obviously we conceded a goal, but I still felt like we made them work really hard in that first half.

And, you know, the thing with us is we've got another gear in us, two or three gears and we keep going and we felt like we could really break them open in the second half if we just really stayed focused on making sure the football was up tempo and there was intensity in the game and credit to the players after a massive effort on Wednesday night, at least they know that physically they did it again.

Can that be a big moment for the side when you think where they were a week ago at Palace, to go and beat City and Villa?

I guess it's my point from seven days ago is that you don't fall off cliffs and you don't climb mountains within a week. It's all part of the same process for me. We're going to have bumps along the way. It's how you address them, how you cope with them, how you rebound and learn from them.

That's the key thing and, you know, we had a disappointing day last Sunday, but when you're coming in on Monday, we had two big games this week, really important games, so no point in feeling sorry for ourselves. We had to come in and get our head straight, and work back towards being the team we want to be and that's what happened, but it doesn't mean that that's the end of it now.

We've still got to push on, we've still got to get better, we've still got to improve and and keep pushing on.

What was the thinking behind taking off Sonny?

He was never going to play more than that today because, obviously he had an injury, came back and last time it was around the 60 minute mark where he kind of got fatigued last time. So he was never going to play more than sort of 55/60 minutes irrespective of how the game was going.

The great thing was that he made a pretty important contribution, before that, the great ball in for our first goal and we got our equaliser. So, you know, again, we got more battles ahead and we're going to need him. So he was never going to play more than that.

He seemed a little surprised to be coming off, were you OK with his reaction and did you explain it to him as he came off?

No, no, no, I didn't see any difference in Sonny. I'd be surprised if any player likes coming off and they're feeling all right. But no, no, I didn't need to discuss it with him. And you know, like I said, for us, what's more important is the overall picture.

Dominic Solanke, you said before the game...

Two shots on target.

Yeah, does this underline your faith in him?

No, it had nothing to do with that as I said during the week. I just think the enormous effort he put in on Wednesday night to help us win a game of football, not just physically but mentally and his capacity to help the team in every way he can. To back that up today with such a massive effort again against a pretty difficult team to play against in that sense, it's just unbelievable. Yeah, the goals are great and of course as a striker I am sure he loves the fact he can score a couple of goals, but even if he didn't, again I can't speak highly enough of what he is contributing to our team at the moment. And long may it continue because with him playing that way, it just makes us a better team.

How impressed were you with the physical and mental effort of the players after this week?

Yeah, obviously we made two or three changes but when you consider it was a big physical toll on Wednesday night and we're obviously a goal down at half-time, it can easily play on your mind, but I never sensed that at the break. The players were really determined to go out there again. They couldn't wait to get back out on the pitch and start playing again and raising the tempo, raising the intensity, and credit to them.

It's not easy. We work hard obviously to get them to those levels, but you still need mental capacity to push yourself to those levels. Sometimes it's easy to leave that in reserve but they left nothing in the tank on Wednesday night and they left nothing in the tank tonight.

If we're putting Wednesday and today together, does this feel like one of your best weeks in charge here?

If you don't include last Sunday, you're saying? Ok, yeah, because that's a week really, technically. It doesn't affect me. It really doesn't, you know.

I'm totally focused on the long game here of who we want to be and the little bumps along the road hurt but you kind of know that that's part of our growth and the good performances and the good moments are there for our growth as well, because you've got to deal with both I think in the same way with your eyes sort of firmly fixed ahead on where you're heading.

What were the problems for Richarlison and Romero?

Yeah, I know Richy obviously felt something in the action of setting the goal up, his hamstring, so we'll see. Romero yeah, it was in that challenge again. He felt his foot was sore. I don't have any sort of further information. Obviously, he's a pretty tough cookie, for him to come off, it must be sore, but yeah, look it's not ideal. But again it's another game where we've had to reshuffle our back line.

Radu has played left centre-back, right centre-back, left centre-back, right-centre-back, Ben Davies has had to come in at different times and Destiny midweek and the boys are handling it really well. As I said it's not ideal but, hopefully both are not too serious.

Pape Matar Sarr has worked his way back into your starting line-up and he seems to be growing with every match?

They're never out of my line-up, it's different challenges along the way. But he probably played as much as anyone last year, I rate him so highly. His capacity again to work for the team but also the quality he has in breaking open oppositions with his running with the ball. I knew he'd be important today because they've got such a hard-working midfield with Onana, Tielemans, McGinn in there, Rogers. They don't really play with wide players, they work awfully hard in that midfield area and you've got to match that. You're never going to break them open unless you do that. He just put in another enormous effort. Along with Rodri and Biss when he came on, and Deki of course.

I'm really proud of the lads. It was an important day for us today. Because it's also the birthday of the late Ugo Ehiogu and he had a big influence on Matty Wells here at the club, I know he played for Villa but he was obviously a coach at our football club. Matty spoke really strongly about him. When you hear things like that, and how people affect your life, it helps give clarity to the players about what we're trying to do here. Obviously for his wife and his son probably a tough day, but hopefully they get a little bit of cheer from the fact Wellsy made it a really important point, that he may be gone but he's not forgotten.

When did Matt make that point to the players?

He just spoke about it during the week. We mentioned him today because it was his birthday today. Like I said, you don't dismiss those kind of things, because he was with our football club when he sadly passed away. So it's important that the memory lives on."

Is it a more open field for Champions League spots this year than just Spurs and Villa?

Yeah potentially, I don't spend too much time thinking about it. But it looks like there's a lot more congestion in terms of the field itself. Some of that I think is just the attrition rate of players at the moment, which is making it hard for teams to get into smooth water, so to speak. We're all having to deal with it, I guess, so that's part of it. The table is only important for me at the end of the year. While we're running in the race, I don't like looking either side of me. I keep saying to the players: if I was a race-horse, and I'm not, it would be one with blinkers. I'm just looking at the finish line. I think that's right, I don't know much about horse racing..."

Did you take extra time to prepare for Villa set pieces as it's a strength of theirs?

No because I think then you fall into the trap of preparing differently. And I've always said that we prepare the same for every game. There's obviously the strengths and areas where they could hurt us. Yeah look we conceded from a set piece. I know I'm on my own on this, I don't like them. To me, I think I mentioned in the TV interview, it looks like a scrum. I just don't think that's what football's about. But it's part of football these days, where you can just drop the ball in the box and people can fight over it. So disappointing for us to concede from that. but in general I thought we handled their set pieces really well. They are very good at set pieces. I thought we handled it really well. It was great for us to score another one again from an attacking set piece, we're scoring goals from different areas, that's important.

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