Ange Postecoglou launches passionate defence of his Spurs side following FA Cup exit

For two and a half months this small group of players have given everything in multiple competitions. I think they've been outstanding. We had the 11 first team players missing today. Started with four teenagers, a 21-year-old goalkeeper coming to one of the best teams in the country away from home. After playing the best team in the country on Thursday night, after playing in a Premier League game last Sunday, after playing a Europa game, the same group of players, no rotation. They've been doing this since the middle of November. I just think they've given everything they can. If you take nine or ten, back four, Vicario, Dragosin, Romero, van der Veen, Udoge, Maddison, Johnson, Solanke, Odebrecht, Werner. Take them out of anything. How did Liverpool go today? They just did that for one game. Now do that for two and a half months. Any team. Do that for two and a half months in multiple competitions. I don't care about me. People will judge me. But you can't judge this group of players on what's happened last tournament. They've given everything. The performance. I said two 18-year-olds, a 17-year-old, a 19-year-old, a 21-year-old goalkeeper starting against one of the best teams in the country at home. They've had a week off. They didn't play Thursday night against Liverpool. We did. Same group of players, not a change. You can't measure this group of players on that and their performance and where they're at. It's too easy for people to be critical of them. That's not of interest to me. My responsibility at this football club is this group of players and this team to get them to play in the manner I want them to that will bring us success. Whether people think I can do that or not, that's for others to judge. There's got to be a better appreciation for what a very small group of players have been doing for the last two and a half months. It can't be that people think that's an excuse. That's just not anywhere near close to objective analysis. That's just agenda-driven stuff. If it's to get rid of me, then that's fine. Good on you. Go for it a million times. But in terms of this group of players, like I said, what they've given over the last two and a half months has been outstanding. It's a credit to them. I can't speak highly enough of them. How do you put the injury? The team doesn't seem like a proper team. I don't know how else to explain it. I really don't know how else to explain it. If you can't see that this team is just trying its hardest to play under the most extreme two and a half months of asking 18-year-olds and 17-year-olds and senior players with no rest to play Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday. I'll keep going for two and a half months. And if you think that that is not at all a factor of how this team is performing right now, then there's nothing else I can say. There's nothing else I can explain to them. No, because they're tired, mate. They can't. Do you think they can press like that? If we hadn't have played Thursday night and I had rotated that team, do you think we would have been pressing a bit more aggressively today? Fair chance, unless you don't think they're human beings. Unless you're sort of superhuman and you think, no, after playing Liverpool Thursday night, they should be flying today. It doesn't happen. They're human beings. Why do you think Liverpool and other clubs rotate 11 players? Why? There's a reason. I wish I could do the same, so you can bring a freshness to the team. So, of course they're not playing anywhere near the levels that we want and expect. But that's not because they're not trying. That's not because they can't. They can. I'll keep saying. I think this group of players, once we get the rest of the group in, will be an outstanding team. I've got no doubt about that. Whether other people see that or not is of no interest to me. But if you want to measure anything on what they're doing at the moment, other than the fact that the extreme situation they're dealing with, then I think your analysis is skewed. It's not fair.