Ange Postecoglou could have up to 10 Tottenham players absent for their next Premier League clash against Southampton. Four fresh worries emerged for the Spurs boss in the weekend's 4-3 defeat to Chelsea with at least one of those guaranteed to be absent.
Inside just 15 minutes, Cristian Romero, making his first start in nearly four weeks, was forced off with a quad injury and now may not feature until the end of January. Just after half time, Brennan Johnson received treatment from physios before the decision was made for him to be replaced by Timo Werner.
Yves Bissouma, while not suffering an injury, picked up his fifth yellow card of the season which means he will be suspended for the trip to St Mary's Stadium next Sunday. And finally Micky van de Ven also had to be withdrawn due to hamstring tightness.
After the game, Postecoglou was unsurprisingly asked for updates on the three players that departed with injury. "Romero is just obviously hugely disappointing. He felt something in his quad," he admitted in his post-match press conference.
"He trained really well but, you know, it's just like I said, the way the season's going for us unfortunately. So we just have to wait and see. Brennan just didn't feel well. He didn't feel well at half-time, but he wanted to give it a go, but he just wasn't feeling 100% so I had to take him off.
"The plan was always for Micky to play 60/70 [minutes] today. Obviously, I thought Romero would be okay to play 90, but Micky, probably 60/70. So we were always going to take him off. He didn't feel anything significant. He just felt tightness, but we were always going to take him off anyway."
The likes of Guglielmo Vicario, Richarlison and Wilson Odobert are long-term injury issues for Postecoglou while it is possible Ben Davies joins that category after suffering a hamstring problem in the 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth.
Rodrigo Bentancur is in the midst of a seven-game ban for racist comments about teammate Son Heung-min while Mikey Moore is working his way back to fitness after suffering with a virus. Before the league clash against Southampton though, Spurs take on Rangers in the Europa League.
Bissouma and Bentancur can feature in that game in Scotland but are unavailable to feature this weekend. Given the European fixture comes just four days after facing Chelsea, any injury returns appear unlikely with Moore also being eased back into action.
Following those two games this week, Spurs take on Manchester United in a Carabao Cup quarter-final and league leaders Liverpool in the space of just three days with Postecoglou certainly hopeful a number of his key players can feature.
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