Ange Postecoglou has been speaking to the media on Wednesday evening out in Germany ahead of Tottenham's Europa League clash at Hoffenheim.

Spurs are in a tough moment in the Premier League but in the Europa League the north London club require four points from their remaining two matches to finish in the top eight in the big new league format to ensure they skip the extra play-off round next month and head straight to the knockouts.

Postecoglou though will be without 14 players for the match against Hoffenheim, including the unregistered Antonin Kinsky, Djed Spence, Sergio Reguilon and Yang Min-hyeok.

READ MORE: New Tottenham injury scare as two players return to training and a third who won't play

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Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou in Germany and here is the full transcript from the press conference at the PreZero Arena.

What's the latest team news and who you've left behind or brought?

From the last game, obviously there’s a couple of players ineligible, Djed and Reguilon. I think the only other one is Pape who got a slight knock from the weekend so he's out. Then we get Bentancur back. I think he's the only one.

Did Sarr try to train earlier today but was showing a bit of discomfort?

Yeah, he tried to train but he was still a bit sore from the weekend. We're hoping it won't be anything that keeps him out for too long. A chance for him at the weekend but the turnaround was too quick.

Romero seemed to be training?

He's training but he's not travelled. He's not playing. Probably another week to 10 days for him.

It's day 22 now, is there a possibility that no one else signs this month?

Yeah, potentially. The club is working hard to try to get some help for the players, but as far as I know, there’s nothing imminent. But things happen quickly in the last week of the window so still hopeful.

Who are you going to play at left-back tomorrow as it probably has to be Archie Gray or Ben Davies?

It will be one of those two, that’s all we’ve got. More likely we’ll play Archie at left-back and Ben at centre-back. We’ve got a couple of different ways to set that up. We’ve literally got four fit defenders so those will be the ones that start.

It feels like three important games, talk us through how your mind works with so few players, do you have to throw them all out there?

The reality is we don’t have a lot of choice. There’s no doubt that the players, I mean Pape the latest of the guys who’ve been sort of grinding through for as long as they can. We’ve no other options, that's the basic premise of it. We’ve probably got 13 first team players who’ve travelled. At the weekend we’re hoping Pape on a quick turnaround, and potentially Biss but everything else is further down track. We don’t have many options, apart from throwing untried youngsters in there but again I don’t want to do that to them. We’ll try to focus on next task, that’s tomorrow night, get through that and assess it from there.

Is there any chance of the players taking their eye off the ball and prioritising the cups?

Nah mate. The players are giving everything every game. This has been a good solid two months of us relying on a small group of players. We’re in every competition which is a great thing but it adds a toll. We’ve been playing two games a week for this whole period. That’s why we’re picking up some injuries now. The players are giving everything every game. They're trying their utmost in every fixture we have. We’re still in three cup competitions so there’s a fantastic opportunity there for us in the next couple of months.

Do you look at who and why this is all happening with the injuries, whether it's through a fixture pile-up and is it a warning to those scheduling competitions that this is what you're going to get in the future?

With regards to the first part of your question, it’s a combination of both. You’re always assessing why it’s happening, that’s only logical. In the early part of year there were things repeatedly happening, guys coming back from injury and getting re-injured and that kind of cost us. So we’ve worked hard to try and better that process but recently it’s been accumulation and the toll of fixturing.

We’ve been hit the hardest but it is becoming more prevalent. If you look at the teams in Europe, even last year, Newcastle really suffered, and Villa to a certain extent this year. You really need a strong squad of players and keep them healthy to cope with playing in Europe if you do well in the cup competitions like we have because it’s not manageable when you’ve got three games a week for the length of time we have.

Some of it is because we've done well in the Carabao Cup and that’s added extra games to our fixturing, and in Europe this year two extra games… so all these things are taking its toll. People may look at us and think it’s a unique case. It's a very extreme case for sure but I don’t think it will be as uncommon as people think as we move along. There’s some warning signs there for others but we’re paying the toll right now.

With the accumulation of injuries, does it give the club a lesson on future strategy over squad planning if it is in Europe again?

Squad numbers are going to stay the same, it’s not like they’re increasing. If you’re going to play this much football you should be increasing squad numbers, is my belief. It doesn’t matter what strategies you put in place. If you want to compete at this level and happen to do well in all competitions there’s no other way to counteract it.

You have to rotate your team, you have to have virtually two separate line-ups. We haven’t been able to do that. Some of that was because of the injury toll earlier in the season and that’s accumulated and that’s created this scenario now where we’re having to play the same players consecutively.

I don’t think it’s a matter of the club’s strategy or recruiting, I think it’s just the sheer numbers, a scenario where we’ve got limited numbers for all competitions. It doesn’t take much if you get two or three injuries, particularly if you get them in similar areas. That adds a load to the existing group, and you’ve got to factor international football into that. It’s not like they get a break between seasons. The calendar’s really ramped up. In the last five years the game has changed a lot from the previous 50 games. There’s going to be some issues if the game keeps changing this quickly.

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