He Will Play – Ange Postecoglou Clear On Spurs Star’s Game Time | OneFootball

Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou has assured Spurs fans that Archie Gray is available and the teenager will play ‘significant’ minutes between now and the end of the season.

The highly-rated England Under-21 international was signed from Leeds United last summer in a deal worth £40m, penning a six-year contract.

He was signed as a player with a long-term vision, but he has clocked close to 3,000 minutes in his first season at the north London club in all competitions.

Spurs suffered major injury problems at the back and he had to play as a central defender for a large part of the season.

Now, however, Postecoglou has Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven available, which has seen Gray not playing in three of the last six Premier League games at all.

The Australian revealed that the 19-year-old is in very good physical shape and will play important minutes by the end of the campaign.

“With all of these things, people just look at them as a moment in time”, Postecoglou told a press conference when he was asked about Gray’s lack of game time recently.

“If you had said at the start of the year that Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray and Mikey Moore would have played the amount of time they have as teenagers, I wouldn’t have said that that’s impossible.

“They’ve played a lot, they’ve played a lot because they’ve earned it.

“Obviously the opportunity as well, but Archie will play, he’ll play even between now and the end of the year, he’ll play significant minutes.

“It’s just the games haven’t worked out the way we wanted them to and we needed to get game time with other guys.

“He’s fit, he’s available; other guys, it wasn’t the case.

“As I said, we’ve got a real clear focus on where we need to be for the rest of this year and who needs to be in a good physical condition.

“Archie is in good physical condition; others weren’t, so we had to give them some game time, but there’s no doubt that Archie will play a significant role still for the rest of this year.”

Spurs are having an awful season in the Premier League, but they are still in the Europa League and are aiming to win it.

It remains to be seen if Gray will get enough game time by the end of the season and make a telling contribution in Europe.