Ange Postecoglou says Tottenham are in the Premier League title race and is confident his side will be even better in the second half of the campaign as he delivered a promising update on James Maddison.
Ahead of Sunday's visit to Manchester United, Spurs are one point behind fourth-placed Arsenal and six shy of league leaders Liverpool, despite a succession of injuries and suspensions since the start of the season.
Postecoglou's injured players are now returning, with Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero in contention to start at Old Trafford and James Maddison expected to be back in full training before the FA Cup tie against Manchester City on January 26.
Spurs have also been strengthened by the signings of forward Timo Werner on loan from RB Leipzig and centre-back Radu Dragusin in a €30million (£25.8m) deal from Genoa, with both likely to be in the squad this weekend.
Postecoglou asked a reporter for their definition of "title race" before the head coach would say if Spurs are part of one, and told it meant having "a realistic chance of winning the title", the Australian said: "Yeah, so by that definition if I say ‘no’ you'd turn round to me and say ‘come on Ange’.
"By [that] definition, we are, aren’t we? So, yes we are and I’ve said all along that until the point where you’re not, why would you discount the possibility?
"We’ve gone through a really tough period and we’re hanging in there. We had four games when results went against us, but we’ve clawed our way back. We’re still in there.
"Our performances for the most part have been pretty consistent. But all that is meaningless if we don’t finish the season stronger than the first half of the season and that’s what we’ve got to do."
Postecoglou believes Spurs will improve in the second half of the campaign and is excited by the potential of his squad.
"It does excite me," he added. "Look, [getting better] has to be the objective and the aim and we’ve got to take every opportunity we have to get stronger.
"I think the first part of the season has helped [the club to have faith in me] and hopefully that keeps accelerating because hopefully it can accelerate our work and where we want to get to.
"All things being equal, we’ve had some rotten luck with injuries, [Rodrigo] Bentancur, Maddison and suspensions which are our own fault but all these things we have to overcome.
"But with the conditions we’ve overcome, with the conditions we’ve made, we certainly we feel we can finish the season stronger than we started."
Postecoglou has said that Spurs' ambitions in the league should not impact on their desire to win a first FA Cup since 1991 and if they can eliminate the holders later this month, the field will start to look favourable - with Arsenal already out, and Chelsea and Aston Villa also meeting in the fourth round.
Postecoglou refused to set limits on what Spurs can achieve this season and urged the club to "kick on" from its current position.
“No, I don’t think that would be right for the players and for the club [to set limits]," he said.
"We have scratched and clawed our way into a decent position in the league, we’re into the next round of the cup, those possibilities are always there and we certainly want to tackle them as robustly as possible without any fear or fear of not achieving anything.
“We’ve done it from day one, we’ve had a vision of the sort of football we want to play and some parts are really, really good and have surprised me with the progress and other parts we’re still in the early stages of development. We’ve got a platform here to kick on."
Spurs' prospects for the business end of the season will significantly improve with Maddison fit again, and Postecoglou hopes to have the England playmaker back in training in the next fortnight.
Maddison has not played since being forced off with ankle ligament damage in the defeat by Chelsea on November 6, but Postecoglou said: "He’s getting closer.
"He hasn’t trained with the group yet. Obviously after Man United we’ve got two weeks and I’ll be hoping between the two Manchester games he’s back training with the first team as long as there’s no setbacks in that two-week window.
"We’ll see [if he can face City]. It depends when he starts training. If he starts training early next week, potentially, but then again you have to see how they train with the first team, how they feel. I think we’ve got three games in that week after the Man City game so I’d hazard to say he should be…
"Him and Manor Solomon are the next two that should be fairly close after that, provided there’s no setbacks."
