ANGE POSTECOGLOU RECEIVES UNEXPECTED TOTTENHAM FITNESS BOOST AHEAD OF LUTON MATCH

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou appears to have been unexpectedly helped out by his international counterparts ahead of Saturday's Premier League match against Luton Town.

Spurs are back in action on Saturday afternoon, looking to get back to winning ways after the dismal defeat at Fulham before the international break. Postecoglou's players have been returning to training at Hotspur Way across this week and the Australian will have not expected just how many he will have been able to throw straight back into full training.

That is because the bulk of his key players either did not start for their countries in their second game of the international break or they played only a handful of minutes, which meant they returned to the Enfield training complex without the need for a recovery period and instead could begin preparing fully for the game against Luton.

Richarlison and Pedro Porro were unused substitutes in Tuesday's friendly draw between Brazil and Spain in Madrid, although the former's lack of minutes across the entire international break might suggest he is still feeling the after effects of his previous knee issue.

Pape Matar Sarr also remained on the bench in Senegal's win against Benin in France. Destiny Udogie was not named in the squad for Italy's friendly win against Ecuador on Sunday, having played the full match against Ecuador on the Thursday night. Guglielmo Vicario made his debut in the second match, starting and keeping a clean sheet after watching on for the first game.

Radu Dragusin only played the first half of Romania's defeat to Colombia in Madrid, while Rodrigo Bentancur did the opposite and played the second half for Uruguay as they lost to Ivory Coast in France. James Maddison came on for just 20 minutes or so for England and contributed the perfect assist for Jude Bellingham's last-gasp leveller against Belgium at Wembley.

Some Spurs players did get a bigger portion of game time, though. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg captained Denmark for the first time and scored eight minutes into Tuesday night's game against the Faroe Islands, and he played almost every minute of both of his games in the international break. However, his lack of starts for Tottenham means it was probably more useful to him than detrimental.

Elsewhere, Son Heung-min played the full 90 minutes in both of South Korea's World Cup qualifying double header against Thailand, scoring in both games and earning his 125th cap for his country. Dejan Kulusevski registered an assist in both of his friendly matches for Sweden and also played every minute.

There was heartbreak for Wales as they missed out on a place at the Euros following a penalty shoot-out defeat to Poland in their play-off final. Ben Davies captained his country across the full two hours and scored in the shoot-out, while Brennan Johnson was taken off after 70 minutes. Joe Rodon, on loan at Leeds, also played the full 120 minutes.

The latest returnees to the Tottenham camp will be Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso. Both of them started for Argentina, in the early hours of Wednesday morning here in the UK, as they beat Costa Rica in the USA. Romero played the full 90 minutes while Lo Celso got a helpful 72 minutes in his legs.

So for Postecoglou, while a handful of his squad got a fair bit of game time, the bulk did not, on top of the likes of Yves Bissouma and Timo Werner, who missed out on their respective Mali and Germany squads and instead trained at Hotspur Way throughout the fortnight. Postecoglou will provide an update on Micky van de Ven's progress after his hamstring problem in his press conference on Friday afternoon.

Tottenham now face two games within three days with Saturday's home match against Luton swiftly followed by a trip to West Ham on Tuesday night. Postecoglou will likely use his full squad to ensure he can put out plenty of sharp players and reduce the risk of injury for the business end to the season.

On the whole, this international break brought an unexpected fitness boost to his team just when he needed as many fresh legs as possible.

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2024-03-28T16:28:42Z dg43tfdfdgfd