Tottenham’s Pochettino Says Alderweireld’s Injury Not Serious [UPDATE]
Toby Alderweireld could return to Tottenham’s starting XI sooner than expected if the scans on his ankle come back negative.
UPDATE: Toby Alderweireld suffered a bruised knee, not an ankle injury (via The Times). Replace ankle injury with a bruised knee when reading the article and slash the amount of games he could miss from a month to at least a week. The rest of the story will remain intact though.
With the Champions League returning tomorrow, Mauricio Pochettino and Tottenham who are in Leverkusen, Germany will be without Toby Alderweireld after suffering an ankle injury during Saturday’s 1-1 draw against West Bromwich Albion.
However, according to the Argentine manager’s press conference, it appears that his injury isn’t as serious as initially thought.
Based on Pochettino’s comments, the 27-year-old could return sooner than expected if the results on his scans comes back negative.
As usual, there’s no exact timeline on a player’s return from injury since Pochettino doesn’t divulge that kind of information no matter how many times reporters ask.
So, to start off his press conference with a question regarding Toby Alderweireld’s injury, Mauricio Pochettino was optimistic — confident even — that everything will be fine for the Belgian international.
“First of all, we don’t have the results of the scan, but we believe it’s not [a] big issue,” the 44-year-old told the media (via Tottenham’s official website).
“He took a very heavy knock on his leg and now we need to wait for the results. The scan was this afternoon and we’ll see after that.”
Harry Kane who suffered his own ankle injury was expected to be sidelined long-term but is doing fine after nearly a month away from action.
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After the swelling on his ankle subsided, team doctors were able to get a result that Mauricio Pochettino said came back positive (most likely false positive, as in Kane did suffer ankle ligament damage but it wasn’t as serious; e.g. needing surgery).
Last Friday, Pochettino reconfirmed that Kane was in good condition and would be nearing a return. Obviously this is good news but it also represents a brief timeline to gauge Alderweireld’s return.
While both players suffered an ankle injury, the degree and severity could be different. As mentioned above, Harry Kane suffered ankle ligament damage, and it’s unknown how bad Toby Alderweireld’s injury is. Serious or not
But assuming that Pochettino is correct in the results — whether it’s false positive or negative — perhaps the Belgian international could miss at least four to five games. Maybe six to seven at most.
Meaning, the rest of October and come back to start November (four games), or return after the international break (six games). This is all speculation of course but at the same time ankle injuries are not something that players can recover quickly and miss only one or two games unless it’s a light sprain.
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That being said, Mauricio Pochettino has two options, three if you include Cameron Carter-Vickers, to fill in the void left by Toby Alderweireld.
Spurs’ defense shouldn’t suffer much if Eric Dier or Kevin Wimmer gets the start until Alderweireld returns. Tottenham have done well this year when players go down and there should be no reason why they can’t maintain their form after losing the 27-year-old at a crucial part in their schedule.