Every word Ange Postecoglou said on Son injury, his Tottenham future and Romero's big response

Ange Postecoglou had plenty to say at his press conference in Frankfurt ahead of Tottenham's Europa League quarter-final second leg and we've got a full transcript with every word the Australian said.

With the score tied at 1-1 from the first leg in north London, are looking to bring a special end to a season that has otherwise brought plenty of pain as they sit 15th in the Premier League, only two points above 17th-placed Wolves, who beat them 4-2 on Sunday at Molineux.

spoke to the media in Germany and revealed some bad news about captain and a positive update on centre-back Kevin Danso.

The Tottenham boss was also asked about his future with many speculating that a defeat in Frankfurt could spell the end of his time in the Lilywhites' hotseat.

Our Spurs correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Postecoglou. Here's a full transcript from his press conference at Deutsche Bank Park.

Is it fair to say the hopes of salvaging the season come down to tomorrow night and what’s your message been to your players?

Yeah, I don’t see it as salvaging the season, I see it as an opportunity to do something special, so it depends on your outlook on life mate, I don’t know. You’re at a point where you have got an opportunity to get to the semi-finals of a major competition. Obviously you know the challenge before you and that’s the bit you’re excited about. I don’t think it is about salvaging anything and you know these opportunities don’t come round very often even if you’re having a good season, so why not take it? That has kind of been the message to the players. Irrespective of everything else that has happened this year, we’re a game away from the final four of a major competition and we shouldn’t take that for granted in terms of something that is a regular occurrence because it certainly hasn’t been for this club, but we’ll try to take advantage of that.

Has everyone travelled and is Sonny fit to play?

Sonny didn’t travel in the end. He’s the only one who misses out. He has been battling with this foot problem for a few weeks now and he’s managed through it, but it’s got too painful over the last few days. He tried to train yesterday and just wasn’t right, so we’ve made the decision to leave him at home to allow him to recuperate to see the best way to recovery for him. Everyone else is good. I guess the only notable addition is Kevin, who trained and is available as well, so really it’s only Sonny that misses out.

Sonny’s your captain and you are missing him for the biggest game of the season, what kind of blow is that?

Yeah, look it’s a blow but it’s consistent with everything else that’s happened this year, so it’s just another challenge for us to overcome. Unfortunate for him and he tried really hard. The reason we left him out at weekend was to give him time to recover because he’s been struggling with this foot thing for a couple of weeks now, but he couldn’t make it. You know, we’ve had these challenges all year and it’s just another we need to overcome.

When it comes to your future - do you know what’s going to happen with you whatever happens this season?

Do I know? No, I’ve got no idea. We’ve got a game tomorrow night… but it’s not something I need to think about I don’t think. I’ve never thought about those kind of things in terms of what’s important. What’s important is we have a game tomorrow night that’s a massive opportunity for this group of players, for us as a team, for this football club to get to closer to achieving what everyone wants to achieve. I think anything else other than that, and particularly in terms of me, I don’t have much thought process that thinks about life or my career or what I’m doing in that way. What I do know is we have an opportunity to get to the final four of a major tournament and that’s where my focus is.

Dominic Solanke hasn’t scored in his past 11 games, what do you think the reason has been for that?

Dom has fought really hard for the team. He’s going to be important for us tomorrow night and we’re really looking forward to his contribution.

The narrative over your future - is it a personal burden for you? Are you feeling it?

No, not at all, mate, because I don’t define my career and me as a person by what people think about me. I never have. Never will. If you don’t think I’m a good coach today, you won’t think I’m a good coach tomorrow, even if we win, mate. One game ain’t going to make a difference to that. You either think I’m capable of doing the job now or you don’t. That’s where I sit with these things. If people think that us winning tomorrow all of a sudden makes me a better manager than what I am today or us losing tomorrow somehow makes me a worse manager, I guess that’s their burden, not mine.

I don’t think that way and I don’t think most people think that way. Or I’d like to think they don’t, in terms of their own sort of self esteem and who they are as people. I couldn’t care less. Really. I couldn’t care less. There’s no burden on me, there’s no anxiety on me. What I’m sitting here doing is thinking we’ve got a great opportunity to get to the final four of a major tournament. Mate, I’m not going to let that slip by without fighting tooth and nail for it irrespective of what may come the day after.

How does it feel to have everyone back barring Sonny and is Dejan Kulusevski ready to start?

It’s massively positive because you realise when we’ve got everyone together, we’ve got a really exciting young squad that I think we can build on. Irrespective of how the game goes, we have got opportunities to make impacts with substitutions. And just the general feeling around the place. The other thing it does, apart from Sonny obviously which is really disappointing, everyone's excited, all the players are looking forward to it. We've had a lot of players who have had to train on their own, deal with the mental grind of trying to get themselves back in amongst the group.

And that affects the general feeling around the place because invariably there isn't this overwhelming feeling of everyone being in it together because players have got their own individual battles to overcome. We've had more doing that than as a core group to solidify those things you need to in terms of team spirit. So just having the whole group together; the dynamics of training, the dynamics of the dressing room, even the dynamics when you travel. For the most part, everyone's got their best buddy with them. They're not back at home. It's a good feeling and you miss it when you've had the kind of season we've had.

How important will the senior players be in the atmosphere?

Yeah I think so. Especially playing away in Europe, it's always a challenge. The experiences we've had this year have been good for that, we've visited some tough places in terms of atmospheres - Galatasaray away, Ibrox, AZ. And a lot of our younger players got exposed to that which I think will be helpful. But there's no doubt that come tomorrow, the experienced guys in the squad who have probably been through something similar will be hugely important for us. And having the key ones apart from Sonny all being fit and available, and feeling good in terms of conditioning, is going to be important.

How have Vicario and Romero responded to Sunday's mistakes? How are they feeling?

It was a tough afternoon and they were disappointed. But the thing about both of them is they don't shy away from that responsibility. They owned up to it, the mistakes were on them but once we reviewed it and put it to bed, they trained the next day with the mentality you expect them to as leaders and experienced players. I guess if they were going to make errors like that, it's better they did it on Sunday than tomorrow night. It's better they don't make them at all but they're human beings, these things happen. Both have got a really good mentality, they're both strong leaders, they're both strong individuals. They weren't hiding away from the fact that they made those mistakes, they owned up to them which is no surprise to me. And I think they'll go out tomorrow night not thinking about that but, again, thinking about the opportunity for us.

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