The devastating rash of injuries that has plagued Tottenham Hotspur continued in the aftermath of the loss to Bournemouth this week. Spurs already came into the season with Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison out for an extended period, and those guys are still not anywhere near a return. Meanwhile, Dominic Solanke is still out with a nagging foot injury, while Mohammed Kudus and Destiny Udogie are two more vital players who have been added to the injury report.
Those injuries are all bad enough, and now Tottenham have one more key piece of the depth puzzle to put on the injured list. Center midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur is no longer a starter at Tottenham and has honestly been a liabilty for much of the season.
But Bentancur is still a decent footballer and a veteran depth piece who can help the team against certain opponents. Now, though, the Uruguayan international is also out for the foreseeable future, cutting down Spurs depth even more.
Tottenham keep suffering blows
Tottenham Hotspur manager Thomas Frank confirmed the Bentancur injury to reporters after the 3-2 loss to Bournemouth. He said, via Lilywhite Rose, "Rodri has a hamstring injury - looks like a bigger one, unfortunately. We don’t know the time frame. That we will know later."
Yet another important player to Tottenham injured without a definitive time table for a return. Kulusevski, Maddison, Solanke, Kudus, and now Bentancur are all experienced players with defined roles in the squad who are injured for an indefinite period.
Now, there is no reason to believe Bentancur will be out as long as Maddison, Kulu, or Solanke, but this looks like another multi week injury with an uncertain prognosis that puts more on the plates of the other Tottenham midfielders, including the load of minutes on their bodies in this ever grueling Premier League fixture slate.
Tottenham will hope that Bentancur can return sooner rather than later, but there is a silver lining to his injury, in that, for the time he is out, it will mean more minutes and more responsiblity for the young players like Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall who are truly the future bed rock players for this Spurs midifeld. And even someone who has been discarded by manager Thomas Frank as of late, Pape Matar Sarr, should benefit, in theory, from getting at least a portion of the minutes left behind by the injured Bentancur going forward.