Micky van de Ven was forced off in the second half of Spurs’ win at Villa Park (Picture: Getty)
Ange Postecoglou has played down the significance of Micky van de Ven’s injury after the Dutchman had to be taken off in Tottenham’s thumping 4-0 defeat of Unai Emery’s ten-man Aston Villa.
Goals from James Maddison, Brennan Johnson, Son Heung-min and Timo Werner sealed Spurs a comprehensive victory over their Premier League top-four rivals, but Van de Ven’s removal will have taken some of the gloss off the visitors’ win.
Van de Ven, making his eighth successive start for Spurs in all competitions, hobbled off with a suspected leg problem just four minutes into the second half, with January signing Radu Dragusin coming on in his place at Villa Park.
The Netherlands defender appeared to be walking without any serious discomfort in videos shared after the full-time whistle and the Tottenham head coach is hopeful the former Wolfsburg man could make a speedy recovery.
The north London club travel across the capital to face mid-table Fulham next weekend before welcoming Luton to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a fortnight’s time.
Asked for an update on Van de Ven at his post-match press conference, Postecoglou told reporters: ‘I’m not sure. He doesn’t think it’s anything too significant.
So it’s disappointing for him because he was outstanding again up until that point.
‘Great for Radu to come in, his first significant game-time in a big game and I thought he handled it really well.’
Villa captain McGinn was shown a straight red card in the second half (Picture: Getty)
Postecoglou felt John McGinn’s 65th-minute red card – after a reckless challenge Destiny Udogie – had little impact on the result considering Tottenham were two goals in front when the Scotland midfielder was given marching orders.
‘I don’t think it was a key moment. We were in control,’ the Spurs head coach explained.
‘Obviously it made it easier but it was just a by-product of the pressure we were putting on them.
‘I don’t think it was a malicious one from John.’
Maddison opened the scoring for the north London club (Picture: Getty)
The Australian said he was ‘really pleased’ with Tottenham’s performance as his side moved to within two points of fourth-placed Villa, while having a game in hand over Emery’s men.
I was really pleased with the way we handled the whole day,’ Postecoglou went on.
‘Obviously we knew it was a significant game coming here, tough venue, good opponent. I just thought, obviously the atmosphere here, they get behind their team.
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‘I thought with all that, the context of all that, first half we did really well, just to make them work hard more than anything else, they had to try to contain us, and the threats they had we snuffed out.
‘I had a sense towards the back end of the first half that they were beginning to really tire a little bit. That was the message at half-time, just to persevere, stay calm, play our football, maintain the intensity, which is going to be important. And we did.
‘We got off to a flyer, the quality of our football was excellent, to see out the game.’
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