In the end it came down to the reassuring words of Ange Postecoglou to put the final seal on Tottenham Hotspur's January transfer window and prompt the arrival of Mathys Tel.

It's somewhat ironic that Postecoglou had to be the one to offer the reassurance and help to save the day and get the deal over the line, with the talented 19-year-old Frenchman unsure initially of the move, because the Spurs head coach has been the one lacking in help during the past month as his injury-ravaged squad have run themselves into the ground.

From the outside, with three signings made eventually, this will go down as Tottenham's busiest January transfer window since the 2008/9 season when Harry Redknapp arrived and was given the returning Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane and Pascal Chimbonda as well as Wilson Palacios and Carlo Cudicini by chairman Daniel Levy.

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How Postecoglou could have done with five new faces across this most bruising of months that continues to leave its mark on the treatment room.

Tel, defender Kevin Danso and goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky could all be valuable additions in the second half of the campaign, all very different players in very different positions.

The problem for Postecoglou and Tottenham is that much of the damage to their Premier League season has already been done by the lack of fit players available in January with near the same XI turning out every three days and picking up more injuries along the way. Spurs had anywhere between 10 and 14 players unavailable for most of the matches during the period.

So while Postecoglou will be delighted with the arrival of the exciting, talented Tel, the speedy, strong Danso and the confident and acrobatic Kinsky, there must be a part of him left wondering what took so long.

Some might wonder if Danso and Tel could have been brought to north London earlier in the window, perhaps at a higher cost, in order to help prevent some of the defeats and further injuries that came. Others might argue that both players perhaps only became available as January wore on.

However, it's doubtful that if Postecoglou had new outfield recruits within the first week or two of January, as other clubs managed, they would be 14th in the Premier League table or overused players would have suffered recent injuries.

Even with freak injuries like Dominic Solanke's knee twisting when taking an unchallenged shot in training or Radu Dragusin's anterior cruciate ligament injury in his right knee against Elfsborg, there's medical evidence that suggests fatigue can lead to reduction in muscle strength around ligaments.

There's absolutely every chance a fresh and fit player would still have suffered both injuries in the same manner, but it would certainly have been no help that Solanke had played more minutes than all of the Spurs squad barring Pedro Porro and Dejan Kulusevski at the time of his injury or that Dragusin had started 21 out of 22 games in all competitions and the one game he did not start in, against Chelsea, he came on after just 15 minutes.

It was in that game that Postecoglou lost both first choice centre-backs Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven to muscle injuries. Neither have fully returned yet with the head coach telling football.london that Romero's injury is a 'slow healer' and Postecoglou choosing not to play Van de Ven at Brentford after his 45-minute return against Elfsborg. It was Van de Ven who Dragusin had replaced at half-time before suffering his own injury.

Whatever the current state of Romero and Van de Ven, it was enough with Dragusin's absence until next season to force Tottenham to try to sign two centre-backs in the final days of the window.

They secured Danso on loan with an obligation to sign the 26-year-old Austria international for £20.9million from Lens and then tried to bring forward summer hopes of signing Marc Guehi only for Crystal Palace to reject their late big money approach for the England international on Sunday night.

That left Tottenham scrabbling around with attempts to loan Chelsea's Axel Disasi, which never really appealed to the player, while the north London club looked at numerous other centre-backs across Europe, including Borussia Mönchengladbach's Ko Itakura, but all to no avail.

For all of the meticulous data research and science of the new recruitment approach at Spurs, it felt like a messy and desperate end to the window.

It leaves Postecoglou right back at square one in the position where he could be relying on just one natural centre-back again this week if Van de Ven is not in a position to take part in Spurs' big cup clashes against Liverpool and Aston Villa. Danso will need to be thrown straight into the action alongside Ben Davies and 18-year-old midfielder Archie Gray will have to continue his fast track education as a centre-back to try to give one of them a rest at some point.

Danso has not played a game of football in almost four weeks by the time the Liverpool matches arrives and if you include the winter break in Ligue 1, he's only played twice in almost two months. He will certainly be fresh within a tired Tottenham squad but it's unlikely he will be sharp.

Postecoglou does at least finally have the respite after three months with a game every three days or so of two free midweeks currently without matches, unless the north London side can avoid defeat at Anfield and reach the Carabao Cup final. That would see them become victims of their own success as the Premier League match at Fulham would move up between the Manchester United and Ipswich matches this month.

Postecoglou will have to rely on finally getting some luck go his way this season and keeping players fit. His two new loan signings and goalkeeper will provide exciting additions through the spine of the team and leave him with plenty of decisions to make with his European squad and who will drop out.

Ultimately though Postecoglou will finally be happy to have received some help from the club. Time will tell whether it arrived too late.

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