Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou has admitted the Europa League final will come too soon for injured Lucas Bergvall.
The 19-year-old has become an integral member of the Spurs squad this campaign with his energetic and marauding displays in central midfield.
Bergvall appears to be out for the season, despite Tottenham making the Europa League final[/caption]
When Tottenham’s injury problems struck, the Swede came to the fore with mature displays in an inexperienced team.
But sadly his season is over after he picked up an ankle issue, and he is set to miss out along with James Maddison who picked up a knee problem.
Bergvall was seen wearing a medical boot ahead as he sat on the sideline during the Lilywhites’ Europa League semi-final first leg win over Bodo/Glimt.
Now Tottenham have reached the final, where they will face Premier League rivals Manchester United.
And ahead of the Bilbao showpiece, Postecoglou was asked about the potential of Bergvall being available.
“Yeah, that is unlikely,” he said. “If we had another two weeks, potentially he could.
“I am sure he will be trying, I am sure [James Maddison] will be trying mate, just to get the strip on.
“Unfortunate for both of those guys, but that has been our season. Nothing has run smooth.
“I am sure there will be parts of themselves really disappointed they are not part of this most important part, but they have been so integral to us getting here.
“As I mentioned after the game, I don’t think there is a single player in the dressing room who hasn’t contributed to help us get to where we have got to today and should we have success, we’ll make sure they get acknowledged in the right way.”
GettySwedish star Bergvall put in some scintillating performances[/caption]
Elsewhere, though, Tottenham are set to be buoyed by the return of Heung-Min Son.
The South Korean forward was forced off in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final with Eintracht Frankfurt.
He was subsequently absent with a foot injury but now could get some game time against Crystal Palace on Sunday.
Postecoglou added: “Yeah there’s no [fresh injuries], everyone got through OK the other night.
“Half hopeful that we get Sonny some minutes tomorrow so he’ll be the only one that sort of can come back in.”
The Australian will have to balance his squad, which was ravaged by injury earlier in the campaign, ahead of the final.
And he admits he’ll have to manage the minutes of players, especially after similar exertions against Tamworth on an artificial pitch resulted in injuries back in January.
He added: “It’s a challenging one, but we’ve tried to navigate that for the last sort of couple of months.
“I think particularly Micky [van de Ven], [Cristian] Romero and Destiny [Udogie] to a certain extent because they’ve missed a huge chunk of the season and you always know when guys come back you’ve got to really manage them because Romero’s and Micky’s season, they had a couple of setbacks after coming back and we just didn’t want to go down that path.
“We’ve changed our structures and our processes so that when they come back, we keep them back.
“We’ve done that really well, I think the last two or three months, but part of that has just been managing their minutes so it will be a balancing act.
“I think they need to get some game time between now and then, which where that happens, look, unlikely tomorrow because I think what we do know about Thursday night, playing on an artificial pitch takes a lot out of the players, it’s fair to say they were sore.
“I remember when we played Tamworth, we actually got a couple of injuries in the game straight after that, I think, because of the surface.
“So we’ve got to be really careful about tomorrow’s game, but next Friday it’s a bit different. I think we’ve just got to make decisions we think [are right], ultimately we want to be in a great condition come the final of Europa, so we’ll use that.”
