Impossible for Tottenham fans to be reassured over Dejan Kulusevski injury assessment | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou is ‘hopeful’ Kulusevski will be fit for the Europa League final but his knee problem is a concern

You could be forgiven for not being completely reassured by Ange Postecoglou's confidence over Dejan Kulusevski's injury, as Tottenham prepare for next week's Europa League Final against Manchester United.

On Sunday, Postecoglou was "hopeful that [Kulusevski] should be OK" after the Swede was forced off 19 minutes into Spurs' 2-0 defeat to Crystal Palace - their 20th top-flight reverse of the season, an unwanted new record in the Premier League era - with a suspected knee complaint.

The Spurs head coach tends to be optimistic about injuries in their immediate aftermath and in the past fortnight has described both James Maddison's knee problem and Lucas Bergvall's ankle injury as "tweaks". The pair will miss the remainder of the season with ligament damage.

Still, Spurs are hoping that Kulusevski, who was being assessed on Monday and missed training with the rest of the squad, will be fit to face United on May 21, although Postecoglou's latest update seemed a little less assured.

Dejan Kulusevski was the only fit playmaker in the Spurs squad after injuries to Lucas Bergvall and James Maddison

AFP via Getty Images

"We'll see," he said on Monday afternoon. "He was a bit sore this morning with his knee.

"It looks like a knock at this stage but we're going to let it settle for 24 hours then assess it. But the initial thing was it's more of a knock than anything more significant."

The club's optimism is just as well, because if Kulusevski joins their growing injury list, Postecoglou has a major problem ahead of season-defining match in Bilbao.

Kulusevski has been off the boil since he returned from a foot injury in mid-April, his only goal or assist in eight appearances a routine pass for Pedro Porro's fortuitous clincher in the 2-0 win over Bodo/Glimt in the semi-final decider.

There is a case, though, that he is suddenly the most important - or certainly the most irreplaceable - player in Postecoglou's squad, and vital to their chances of producing a coherent attacking display against United.

In the absence of Maddison and Bergvall, Kulusevski is the only remaining playmaker in the squad, the one remaining fit midfielder with the ingenuity, brains and technical quality to make Postecoglou's side tick.

Spurs have shown a newfound defensive solidity in their last two European ties, impressive wins over Eintracht Frankfurt and Glimt, but those victories were spearheaded by Maddison, who made both goals against the Germans and scored in the home leg of the last-four.

"The thing with Deki was that he obviously missed a fair bit of football, but I could just sense he was getting back into the groove of things," Postecoglou said on Monday. "I thought there's some real promising signs.

"At Bodo he had to do a really disciplined job for us in terms of defensively, but he started to show some of that attacking creativity and I thought he started the [Palace] game really well yesterday. I thought our first 10 minutes were actually okay, and then he gets injured.

"So yeah, he's pretty important to us in the context of where the squad is at the moment, so fingers crossed he's OK."

Ange Postecoglou embraces Dejan Kulusevski after Tottenham’s win over Bodo/Glimt

Action Images via Reuters

Postecoglou creative options if Kulusevski cannot recover in time for United are limited.

Pape Matar Sarr began at No10 against Palace, with Kulusevski actually starting the game as a false nine, but the Senegalese is a runner rather than an inventor, and struggled with the role of creating from an advanced midfield position.

Postecoglou has twice started Sarr ahead of Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur previously; a 4-0 defeat at Liverpool in the League Cup semi-final second leg and the 2-2 draw at home to Bournemouth, when Spurs trailed 2-0 before the withdrawal of both Bissouma and Bentancur prompted a late turnaround.

Sarr, Bissouma and Archie Gray were little better against Palace, suggesting that there is a real danger in Spurs going into the Final without a creative passer.

Wilson Odobert played the final half-hour against the Eagles at 10 and, as a tricky dribbler, would appear better suited to deputising for Kulusevski, but Postecoglou has played down the chances of starting the young Frenchman in a central role.

"It was a needs must basis, I put [Odobert] in there, he's played there before, because I didn't want to expose any of the other guys from the other night so he had to play in there," said Postecoglou.

Wilson Odobert could be an option through the middle

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If Kulusevski is sidelined and the head coach is reluctant to play Sarr or Odobert in the middle, one option is to switch to a 4-4-2 with Richarlison playing off Dominic Solanke, and the fit-again Heung-min Son and Brennan Johnson providing width.

But switching systems for such a seismic game would be a huge risk.

Spurs will now hope Kulusevski can play some significant minutes against Aston Villa on Friday in order to both prove his fitness and perhaps find some rhythm before next Wednesday's game.

If his injury is worse than first feared, however, Postecoglou may need to get creative himself in a bid to solve a developing problem in his side.