Ange Postecoglou has acknowledged Tottenham captain Son Heung-min cannot continue to play every match.
Spurs will make a late call on Son ahead of Sunday’s trip to Manchester United after the forward limped off during their 3-0 Europa League win over Qarabag with “fatigue” in his hamstring.
The South Korean has been an indispensable player over the past 10 seasons and scored 164 goals in 415 appearances for Tottenham, with his longest injury absence a broken arm in 2020 which sidelined him for two months.
Even though Son has played every minute of this season’s Premier League and featured in cup wins over Coventry and Qarabag, Postecoglou has admitted the club must be “sensible” about the 32-year-old’s schedule.
The Spurs boss explained: “I would have wanted to ease his workload this early part of the year, but we lost Richy (Richarlison) and we lost Dominic (Solanke), then we lost Wilson (Odobert).
“He’s played more than I think, than I certainly want him to, and the idea signing Dom, bringing in Wilson and extending Timo’s (Werner) loan was that we could manage his load because he’s got international football as well.
“It’s something that I’m mindful of, but it’s just the circumstances so far and Sonny always wants to play. That’s his attitude, but we’ve got to be sensible about it. I don’t think it’s got so much to do with his age because I haven’t seen that affect him.
“It’s more I just don’t think that kind of workload in the modern game is sustainable. We’ve spoken a lot about fixture overload and part of that responsibility lies with us to try to protect our players and certainly with Sonny we’re going to have to be mindful of that.”
While Tottenham only played 41 matches last season, Son had Asian Cup commitments in January alongside regular international fixtures throughout the year.
Postecoglou was quick to shut down any suggestion that he would ask the South Korea captain to focus only on club football and does not plan to speak with the attacker about when he will be left out of the Spurs XI.
Asked if he would tell Son to retire from international duty, Postecoglou insisted: “Oh no chance, because I understand how important it is for him.
“We can look in cold harsh light that his club football will benefit if he doesn’t play for his country but one day he won’t be able to play for his country and the one thing I wouldn’t want is for him to have regrets that he missed the opportunity to play as much as he could.
“All these decisions are better left to the player because they know how they feel about their career.
“I’ve had experience of working with guys like that before and they’re always going to want to play.
“Do I want to dull that competitiveness by having a reasoned discussion with him over a cup of tea and saying. ‘Sonny this is going to be great for you, great for me?’
“No, I’d rather I leave him out and he’s disappointed with me because I think that’s what you want in him.
“Sometimes it’s doing something for someone’s own good and that’s my decision, my responsibility and I’ve got to take that on board.”