Dejan Kulusevski outlines his two aims with Tottenham this season – Including Europa League success

Dejan Kulusevski is delighted that Tottenham Hotspur were able to go back to their core identity by delivering an energetic display against Man Utd, and the attacker made an admission about why he and his teammates were able to play as well as they did.

Tottenham looked more like an Ange Postecoglou side on Sunday

Tottenham’s performances in the defeats against Liverpool and Aston Villa last week were extremely poor as the Lilywhites were dumped out of the Carabao Cup and FA Cup in quick succession.

What was particularly worrying about those displays was that rather than playing the possession-based, aggressive style that we have come to expect from Postecoglou, the North London side were extremely passive and content to sit back instead of pressing the opposition.

However, on Sunday, Spurs were finally back to something close to their best, boosted by the returning James Maddison and Guglielmo Vicario. The Lilywhites were first to every loose ball and suffocated Man United with their press.

Dejan Kulusevski makes Tottenham energy confession

Kulusevski was pleased that he and his teammates were able to stay true to their principles on Sunday and dominate Ruben Amorim’s side.

The 24-year-old confessed that the squad was running on empty over recent weeks and desperately needed the week’s rest to recover both physically and mentally ahead of the game.

When asked about the win against the Red Devils, the Swede told The Standard: “[Last week] was very rough but you can’t be emotional.

“When you give everything you had, when you prepare yourself 100 per cent, you can’t look back. It didn’t go as I wanted or we wanted but the day after I didn’t care. Because you can’t have regrets when you give everything.

“We needed this week of rest, we need it a lot…[to] start training, get back to our principles, get some players back and it was a good win. [A rest] is very important, especially for the long-term also because in the end you want to be Superman but you can’t deny [the reality of] things.

“I really needed that week, to get away for two days with the family because we don’t spend a lot of time with our families when we play every day and sleep at hotels, so you want to have a life also. In the long run, I think it will make a difference.

“Also physically we have had some [injury] problems and we try to fix them. But it’s hard when you play every day so it was very good for everyone. To play football you need energy. You need a lot of energy and sometimes you can’t find it and we had to show it [against United]. That was the number one [thing] we thought about: find the energy, create some happiness, get the crowd involved and we started off good.”

Kulusevski believes Spurs can do something special this season

On the whole, this campaign has been one to forget for Tottenham, who are still languishing in the bottom half of the table despite their win on Sunday.

However, Kulusevski is convinced that Spurs can still turn their season around by pushing themselves up the Premier League table and achieving Europa League glory.

He added: “The only thing I care about in life is ‘never give up’. Everything else can happen, I don’t care, but the only thing I never want to see in football is playing with your head down. So always do your best. So [the aim is to] win the Europa League and go on a winning streak in the Premier League. That’s my goal at least.”

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