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De Zerbi on Maddison, injuries and momentum after Chelsea

Tottenham boss Roberto de Zerbi has been speaking to the media before Saturday's Premier League game against Crystal Palace at the Tottenham Hostpur Stadium (17:30 GMT).

Here are the key lines from his news conference:

  • De Zerbi has confirmed that James Maddison will be available for this weekend's match despite coming off injured against Chelsea. Tosin, Lucas Bergvall and Mykhailo Mudryk remain out.

  • When asked if Maddison can get away with not training as much as other players in the squad, de Zerbi said "I believe in working hard."

  • He added: "I come from a city, Brescia [where] we are used to working hard. For James Maddison or any player coming back from injury, [you] have to work more than the other players but he's already working hard for four, five weeks and consistently. So it's not a problem if you miss two days and then we have to analyse if we take risks or not. Because if we take risks like we did with Pedro Porro and [Dejan] Kulusevski... we are lucky to have a big squad [but] it's [about] not taking risks for new injuries."

  • The Italian manager said the club "want to be happy at the end of the season" after last weekend's 2-0 win over Chelsea. On winning two games in a row, de Zerbi said: "We have to push, we have to stay focused, improve the spirit, the appetite to win games in a row. To do that we have to show if we are good enough. We've shown that on the pitch but now we have to show that in our mentality. Because the [level] of this club is to win games in a row. One win or two wins are not enough."

  • Four out of the last five Spurs' goals have come from outside the area and De Zerbi said that the players "have this quality in themselves". He added: "I think we are improving in a lot of things. We are ready to score many goals in more situations."

  • On if the club can build momentum now, he said: "I believe in my players. We have many leaders in our group, [Andy] Robertson, [Micky] Van de Ven, Pedro Porro, [Jan Paul] Van Hecke, Sandro Tonali, Rodrigo Bentancur, Tosin, Ben Davies, James Maddison. They push to keep the level of mentality, spirit and appetite high. Especially because now football is going in this direction."

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