Ange Postecoglou has insisted that Tottenham's young players will "bear fruit" in future, and says if he was interested in self-preservation he would have tried to stop Harry Kane from leaving the club.
Postecoglou's depleted side slumped to a sixth Premier League defeat of the season against Bournemouth on Thursday and they face in-form rivals Chelsea at home this weekend.
The Australian's squad has been being stretched to the limit by a raft of absentees in recent weeks, leading to scrutiny on the club's summer transfer business, when they replaced several experienced players with Dominic Solanke and three teenagers – Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall and Wilson Odobert.
Asked if the club's business made his own job harder in the short-term, Postecoglou insisted investing in youth was the "right decision" and said he would have tried to prevent the club's record-scorer Kane joining Bayern Munich in summer 2023 if he was motivated by his own "existence".
“It is still the right decision and I own them [transfers] because I believe they are the right decisions for this club," Postecoglou said on Friday.
"I have said numerous times, I make these decisions with the kind of background that I’m going to be here for a while to see this through.
"To be honest, if I was worried about my own existence I would have fought tooth and nail to block Harry Kane leaving but it wasn’t the right decision for the club because he was in the last year of his contract. That is not what drives me.
"The decisions we made around signing young players are the right decisions for this club for where we are at right now and they will bear fruit.
"We have [lost experienced players] but we needed to do that. We needed to do that because it was a team that was coming towards the end of its cycle and we were rebuilding not just the squad but the playing style and you couldn’t replace experience with experience because that is not a rebuild.
"That is kind of topping up because you feel you are close to something and we weren’t close to anything."
Gray made his Premier League debut at the Vitality Stadium and may be required to fill in at centre-half against Chelsea after Ben Davies suffered a hamstring injury on the south coast.
"He’ll be better for it, it was a good experience for him," Postecoglou said of Gray. "It wasn’t easy, it was tough, particularly when we put him at centre-back but it will do him the world of good, make him a better player and a stronger personality for our football club."
Centre-half Cristian Romero has a chance of returning on Sunday, but Rodrigo Bentancur (suspended), Micky van de Ven, Richarlison, Odobert (all hamstring), Guglielmo Vicario (ankle) and Mikey Moore (illness) are set to remain sidelined.
"We're really stretched thin in terms of the squad and losing Benny last night doesn't help that," Postecoglou said.
"We've got European games, we've got Carabao Cup in there as well so we've just got to try and manage the players the best we can to make sure we've got the maximum performance out of them.”
Postecoglou added: "For me, the disappointing last night [against Bournemouth] was the repeat of the cycle of us going into games, starting well enough but allowing the opposition to get a sloppy goal like we did last night or not taking our opportunities.
“We need to break that cycle, irrespective of where we're at at the moment. We know we're really thin on the ground in terms of squad numbers.
"We know there's not a lot of opportunities to rotate and rest players. We obviously paid the price with Benny last night. They're known things. But what also is known is that we've repeatedly shot ourselves in the foot in those kind of games like last night and we need to change that."
