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Ange Postecoglou has said that he believes Tottenham are in the Premier League title race but warned it will be “meaningless” if they don’t finish the season stronger than they started it.
Spurs travel to Manchester United on Sunday in fifth place, six points behind leaders Liverpool with 20 matches played.
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Expectations were low at Tottenham after the summer sale of star striker Harry Kane to Bayern Munich but Postecoglou has revived the club with an exciting brand of football, leading to questions over whether Spurs have a realistic possibility of challenging for what would be a first league win since 1961.
“By that definition, if I said ‘no,’ you’d turn around and say ‘Come on, Ange’ because by definition we are [in the title race], aren’t we? So yes, we are,” he said on Friday.
“I’ve said that all along, until you’re at the point where you’re not, why would you discount the possibility?”
Following a strong start to the season, Spurs suffered four defeats in five games as injuries decimated their squad before recovering their form over Christmas and New Year, most recently beating Burnley to reach the FA Cup fourth round last week.
Postecoglou continued: “We’ve gone through a really tough period but we’ve been hanging in there. We had four games where the results went against us but we’ve clawed our way back.
“We had a little setback, we’re still in there. I think our performances for the most part have been pretty consistent but again, all of that is meaningless unless we finish the season stronger than we did the first and that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Spurs moved quickly in the January market to sign Timo Werner on loan from RB Leipzig and Radu Dragusin from Genoa in a deal worth around €30 million ($32.9m).
Djed Spence joined Genoa on loan while Eric Dier has followed Kane to Bayern, initially on loan but with an option to buy for between €2m and €4m.
Asked whether the club could make further additions amid continued links with Chelsea midfielder Conor Gallagher, Postecoglou said: “We’ll see. We had some pretty clear objectives which we’ve ticked off for now.
“We’re still … I think I said every window is an opportunity for us to get better. If there’s an opportunity for us to get better we’ll take it, but what we were trying to achieve going into it I’m really pleased we’ve got two players in who I think will play a really important part for us in this second half of the year and beyond.”