I guess it wasn’t just the “tightness” after all. In a press conference ahead of the Europa League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Rangers at Ibrox on Thursday, Ange Postecoglou said Spurs will be without both Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero after both were substituted in Sunday’s defeat to Chelsea . Postecoglou also described the club’s current injury crisis as one of the worst he has experienced in his career.

“(The injury situation is) not much better. Given the fallout from the weekend, Romero and Van de Ven, we’re still getting clarity on the injuries, but we’ll be without them again. Right now we’re still trying to get schedules for these guys, so I wouldn’t give any timing yet.

“Yes (laughs), I have to get creative. I think Archie (Gray) is probably the one for us at the moment to try and step in there. He played right and left for us. Had to play a bit at centre-back this year, which he did in pre-season. With him and Radu (Dragusin) they are the two main defenders. We still have five or six games left, so at some point we might have to get creative and deal with it differently.”

This just feels terrible, terrible, no good, very bad luck. Romero’s injury, which Gaston Edul reported yesterday as requiring about six weeks of recovery time, is a new injury that is likely unrelated to the toe injury he was just recovering from, unless one believes that proprioception can influence muscle injuries in other areas.

But Van de Ven just feels cruel. He had just come back from his second long-term hamstring injury and now may have suffered a third. After Sunday’s defeat, Ange described Mickey’s situation as “tense” and softened the impact, but that perhaps suggests it’s a little more serious than first thought. We don’t know what happened – perhaps Van de Ven was sent back too soon, or perhaps it was just a roll of the dice that caught his eye. Or maybe Ange is just lying about injuries. We know that he listens to and follows the instructions of the club physiotherapists.

Ange also spoke about the nature of the injury crisis currently at the club, saying the club is trying to minimize the impact on the players.

“I never think it’s just bad luck. Some of it. I have never lost a goalkeeper during this time. Some of the other issues we’ve had… But some of those keep coming up, especially this year with guys coming back and getting injured again. That’s something we pay attention to. We’re always trying to figure out if we can do things better. Last year was different than this year. Last year it hit us across the board. This year there are more guys coming back and being affected by it. On wood, we have a core group that plays a lot and gets through it well. But it’s something we want to address.”

Speaking of Romero, Postecoglou was also asked about Cuti’s comments to Telemundo recently, in which he expressed his support for Ange but expressed clear criticism of the Spurs board, including, reportedly, chief executive Daniel Levy. Ange admitted that Romero’s comments were heartfelt and emotional, but that he probably made the wrong decision to express his opinion in such a public forum.

“He was very emotional. He couldn’t help us on the pitch. I think that was his way of helping. We are going through a tough time and he believes in what we are doing. He probably went about the other part (about the hierarchy) wrong. I don’t think our challenges right now are about one person. I never believed that and never did.

“We can only do this if we stay united. Cristian realizes that a lot of what he said was good, but some of it wasn’t the right way to handle it. Likewise, I wouldn’t publicly criticize a player.

“I just think you deal with these things internally. I just don’t think it’s of any use to us. I know people get very leery about punishments and things like that. They really love this kind of thing. I think I’m pretty consistent in saying that I don’t just think it’s important. I think what’s more important is an understanding of how we should deal with these things and deal with them better.

“I have already spoken to Cristian about this and he apologized that the way he said it, especially in a public sense, was not the right way to go about things. He’s human, he got emotional and I think he just expressed what he wanted to express, probably in the wrong way.

“He cares. I think it would have been easy for him not to say anything. While it’s important to him, there’s a way to do these things and express yourself, and the way he did it wasn’t the right way.”

Spurs will face Rangers in the Europa League in Glasgow tomorrow at 3pm ET / 8pm UK. Expect a CB pairing of Radu Dragusin and Archie Gray.