boss has allayed injury fears over Son Heung-min and Cristian Romero and says both players are fit despite suffering discomfort during the international break.
Captain Son was on Tuesday and looked in serious pain, while a day later Romero was forced off at half-time of Argentina’s win over Peru that had swollen up.
But both players are available for selection for Monday night’s clash with Fulham and, aside from a couple of longer term issues, Postecoglou has a virtually fully fit squad to choose from.
Asked about the status of Son and Romero, and the entire squad, Postecoglou said at his pre-match press conference on Friday: ‘Yeah look it’s been a pretty positive international break for us.
‘So in terms of availability, the international players I’ll address first, everyone is kind of back and medical reports all seem to be good so no real issues around the guys from a fitness perspective.
‘Also not just from that perspective, but a couple of senior debuts for Destiny [Udogie] and Micky [van de Ven] getting some runs in there in terms of playing for their national teams, so it was a good break.
‘Gio Lo Celso played for Argentina as well, which was great. So those guys all came through it well.
‘And then with Brennan [Johnson] he had a good couple of weeks of solid training which has been good for him with the guys that have been left, alongside [Rodrigo] Bentancur, Bryan Gil, and they’re all good.
‘So in terms of playing on Monday night that helps us in that respect, but all the international players should be available. Brennan we’ll just see how he goes the next couple of days.’
Asked how far away Bentancur is from playing, Postecoglou added: ‘We’ll be careful with him. Now he’s sort of fully training, so that means he’s into the whole session.
‘We’ve sort of drip fed him into training the last sort of month and he’s coped pretty well with that. Now he’s into full training.
‘We’ve got to be mindful that he’s missed a fair bit of football, but I think the more he trains with the first team over the next few weeks, we’ll sort of pick our moment [to play him].
‘But he’s looking good in training, it was great to have him here for the last couple of weeks sort of fully integrated with the guys that are here and looking forward to getting him back.’
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