MICKY VAN DE VEN has launched a staunch defence of his commitment to Tottenham and insisted any reports of players not caring about the club’s precarious situation are nonsense.

Spurs are embroiled in a Premier League relegation battle and reached a nadir last Tuesday when they slipped to a club-record sixth consecutive loss with a 5-2 defeat at Atletico Madrid in the Champions League last-16.

It put Spurs interim head coach Igor Tudor on the brink, but a battling 1-1 draw away to Liverpool on Sunday has provided renewed hope, along with the return of Destiny Udogie, captain Cristian Romero and Lucas Bergvall for this evening’s visit of Atletico.

“Difficult but not impossible,” Tudor said of the task ahead at a press conference this afternoon.

“We need to stay in the game as much as possible and the game can be long, so focus on our strengths, our things we can have tomorrow and everything still to play. So, believe we can do it. That’s the most important thing.

“The main goal is to be focused on this game, even knowing our first thing is to stay in the [Premier] League, but tomorrow is let’s say a big challenge.

“After everything that happened in that [first] game to show that we can do good things against them, that they are not better than us. Champions League game. All the glory.”

Van de Ven, who has faced criticism following a red card earlier this month against Crystal Palace, hit back at suggestions some players have “checked out” in the survival battle.

“The only thing I can say is it’s not true. It would be strange if a player was in the dressing room now and saying, ‘I’m going to leave either way, or I don’t focus about the situation because everything that’s going to happen, it doesn’t affect me’, so I think it’s just nonsense,” Van de Ven said.

“The other day when we read something about one guy that said to everyone that he’s probably going to leave and doesn’t care about the situation they’re in, and then someone reads this and we’re just like, how does this come out? People are just making things up.

“It’s just frustrating for us as well because it brings so much more trouble as well, because the fans are starting to believe this.

“Trust me all the people involved on the pitch, the staff, the players, everyone, they care so much about the situation we’re in right now.

“We just want to turn things around and that’s the most important, that’s the main focus for everyone.”

The return of Udogie and Bergvall to training today after hamstring and calf injuries respectively was a much-needed boost and captain Romero is available despite his nasty clash of heads with team-mate Joao Palhinha in Madrid.

Palhinha remains unavailable and Conor Gallagher is also set to miss out.