Every word Ange Postecoglou said on Van de Ven injury, Romero substitution, Werner and Sarr goal

Ange Postecoglou has delivered his verdict on Tottenham's 2-1 win against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup. Paired against the reigning Premier League champions in the fourth round of the competition, the Spurs boss made five changes to his team to take on Pep Guardiola's men.

Archie Gray, Radu Dragusin, Pape Matar Sarr, Rodrigo Bentancur and Timo Werner all came into the side as Postecoglou opted to freshen up his team and give some of those on the periphery a go. Spurs made the best possible start to the game with Werner finishing off a flowing move after Dejan Kulusevski had picked him out.

It was to get even better for Spurs on 25 minutes as Sarr doubled the lead with a curling strike from the edge of the area that found the bottom corner. City did get back into the contest on the cusp of half-time as Matheus Nunes reduced the deficit at the back post from Savinho's cross but Spurs managed to see out the game to go through.

Speaking to the media after the game, Postecoglou opened up on the win, the injury to Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero's substitution, Werner and plenty more. Here is what the Australian had to say in his post-match press conference:

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What are you thoughts on the win?

Yeah it was an important win. Obviously in the cup competitions you have to win to continue in it so that is the first thing. Look, you're playing against an unbelievable side and they're going to ask you all sorts of questions and they did today. I thought we defended well as we didn't give away many clear-cut opportunities but we did have to defend and I thought we did that well.

In our attacking moments we had some really top quality moments and we had some really good chances to finish the game off what we didn't take. But great resilience from the boys to sort of hold out. When you play City they're going to ask you every question there is and for the most part I thought we handled it ok.

Your thoughts on the two goals...

Pape has done well for us in terms of goal output when he has played. He hasn't played every game but when he has played he has made an impact for us. It was well worked as an attacking set-piece but it was a hell of a strike. Against City you need quality in those moments to score against them and both goals were outstanding moments for us.

Great move for the first one and great for Timo to finish as he has been going through a tough time. With the attacking players it kinds of weighs on them when they don't score or don't sort of finish stuff off. For him to score tonight and in an important moment of the game was great and hopefully that sorts of helps him kick on.

How are Micky and Timo in terms of injuries and was Romero an injury or tactical change?

Micky felt something in his hamstring. I haven't got the full update on him but he definitely felt something and we'll see how he is. Cuti was a bit tired. I contemplated changing him at half-time but after losing Micky as well I didn't want to lose another centre-half.

He said he felt ok but my gut was telling me there's no point taking a risk as we had Benny who could come on. Timo hasn't played a lot so I felt it was more fatigue hopefully than anything else.

Was Sarr a tactical change at half-time?

Yeah he had been booked and I just thought the way the game was going I didn't want to take a risk there. I thought Biss would help us in our build-up as it got a bit sticky for us sort of the end of the first half playing out. I thought having Biss and Rodri in there would give us more of a foothold in there playing out from the back and that helped us in the second half. It was tactical more than anything else.

City have won this competition in six of the last ten years.. Do you feel like it's wide open for the boys?

Are you suggesting the sides left are easy?

No, but there's an opportunity there.

There's always an opportunity if you keep winning. But as I say, there's still some decent teams in there. It's not really the quarter-final stage. But for us, what's important is we're in it. As long as we stay in it, we've a chance.

And for the playing group to go toe-to-toe with a really good City side, does that feel like a big step forward in the development for this group?

I'm not going to go for big steps forward or big steps back. We're the same team we were three days ago. We're a side that's growing, we're developing. I've seen progress, I'll continue to see progress, but we're going to have stumbles along the way. In the same way, we don't lose our nerve after having a poor one on the weekend. Tonight doesn't mean that we need to change our approach.

We're just going to keep working on what we've been doing and keep believing in the process of what we're trying to build. The key thing for us tonight was obviously the victory. In a cup competition, ultimately, that's the main thing. You've got to win to keep going. And the fact that it was against a formidable opponent is great for the whole group.

Do you think there was a bit of wounded pride given the Crystal Palace defeat?

I hope not. I really hope not. That's what I'm talking about. We can't wait for these things to change our approach. Yes, we were disappointed on the weekend because we didn't reach the levels we needed to. We shouldn't wait for those moments then to react.

But, as I said yesterday, this group is still learning a lot of these things. They need to have these experiences of difficult times. How they cope with them, how they react to them is important, for sure. You don't want difficult times to last too long.

For us this year, we kind of bounced back whenever we've had a bit of a stumble. But the idea is not to stumble too often either. We should prepare ourselves for another big game on the weekend.

Given losses… big win?

I continue to see growth in this group of players and this team. I want them to have these moments because I know how important it is to accelerate the growth of what we're doing. But for me, personally, nothing really changes. It's about trying to continually push this group to become the team we want to be.

We're not there yet, fair to say. But as I said yesterday, I'm really optimistic and bullish about this group of players. I just think they've got a really high ceiling and we've just got to keep focusing on that.

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