"Fighting for 4th place? I don't care?"Postecoglou, relaxed smile.

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Enzi Postecoglou is all smiles.

Tottenham Hotspur defeated Nottingham Forest 3-1 in the 32nd round of the 2023-2024 Premier League (PL) season at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England, at 2:00 a.m. ET on Aug. 8.

With the win, Spurs moved into fourth place with 60 points (18 wins, 6 draws, and 7 losses), one point ahead of Aston Villa (60 points), who have played one more game. They are tied on points, but have a goal difference advantage. Seventeenth-place Nottingham remained on 25 points (W7 D8 L17), allowing 18th-place Luton Town (25 points) to catch up.

Postecoglou opted for a 4-2-3-1 formation. He started with Son Heung-min, Timo Werner-James Maddison-Brennan Johnson, Yves Bissouma-Pape Sarr, Destiny Udogie-Micky van der Vaart-Cristian Romero-Pedro Foro, and Guglielmo Vicario.

Tottenham took the lead in the 15th minute when Werner's incisive cross was headed home by an own goal, but they conceded an equalizer through Chris Wood in the 27th minute and came close to breaking the deadlock in the 34th minute, only to be saved by the post. 바카라사이트 Spurs came out firing after halftime and combined a cannonball strike from The Ben eight-and-a-half minutes into the second half with a goal from Foro 13 minutes from time to complete the 3-1 victory.

Asked after the game if he felt they had taken control of the fight for fourth place, Postecoglou said, "Yes. We are going well from the start. I don't care about the race for fourth place at all. What I care about is the way the team is developing. I'm happy with today. We had a little bit of everything. We didn't just score the goal, we started the game well," he smiled.

"We conceded on the counterattack, which is really disappointing. We lost our way a little bit towards the end of the first half, but we had a great response and we dominated the whole second half. We played good football and scored some good goals. We scored an extra goal against a team that threw everything at us to score. We did really well," he added.

Tottenham introduced Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur for Bissouma and Sarr at the start of the second half, and the difference in the game was immediate. "There was a change at halftime," Postecoglou said. I'm not talking about Bissouma or Sarr, I just thought we had a quality squad and I thought we needed new energy in the middle because they were playing really hard. The energy and ability of Hojbjerg and Bentancur was outstanding."

Werner was not left out of the praise. "Werner was good, he worked hard and was always a threat," Postecoglou said. He contributed to the first goal, he ran really well towards the opponent, he helped us, especially in the second half, he helped us really well." "He's doing everything well now. He wasn't a starter a couple of weeks ago, but we knew we needed him and we brought him in, and he proved it." The crowd applauded.

Finally, Postecoglou also has high hopes for van der Ven. "He has the desire and determination to be the best he can be. He does that every day. Today he defended well and scored with a great shot. It was a well-crafted set piece, so credit to him."

He added: "We will not limit Van der Vaan's development. We won't let that happen. If you give players the environment to keep pushing themselves, they will follow because everyone is competing."