Dominic Solanke has seemingly hinted he's desperate to feature for Tottenham Hotspur against AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League after missing the last seven weeks with a knee injury. The Spurs forward, 27, joined a growing list of absent players back in January, but he could be the latest man to make a return.
The three-cap England international picked up the issue innocuously just 24 hours before the defeat to Everton when taking a shot in training. In his absence, Ange Postecoglou has utilised Son Heung-min through the middle while also playing Richarlison there until he suffered another injury.
January signing Mathys Tel has been deployed up top in recent weeks, but he has struggled to make an impact having been required to play a lot of minutes, after barely featuring in the first half of the season. Solanke could certainly help out on that front with the 27-year-old included in the squad to face Alkmaar.
Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero, two others that have missed a number of weeks through injury, were also captured getting on the plane heading for the Netherlands with Postecoglou issuing an update on their respective conditions.
"We'll see, we'll train today," he said at a press conference when asked if any of the trio may start. "Obviously, they've all out for significant amount of time, so we'll see when we reintroduce them, but they're all here and training today, so we'll make decisions after that."
All three will likely be eager to feature prominently given the match's importance, with Solanke sending a reminder of his quality by reposting his goal against Galatasaray earlier in the competition that was uploaded by to the club's Instagram account as clip eight when recapping their European journey so far.
Although the likes of Wilson Odobert, Guglielmo Vicario and James Maddison have all also returned across recent weeks, Dejan Kulusevski has been added to the injury list. "So in terms of who hasn't travelled, [Dejan] Kulusevski is the only one," Postecoglou added.
"He's got a knock on the foot, he's not really sure when to be honest, but it's got a bit sore in the last couple of weeks but he's been able to train and play and just get through it okay.
"But it wasn't getting better so we did some further investigations and no real clarity again, but we're waiting on a couple of things to find out the extend of it but unlikely to be back before the international break. Nothing serious, nothing surgical or anything, but he didn't travel.
"Ben Davies, he's close but still doing some work back at the training ground with Richy and everyone here."
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