Why can’t Tottenham Hotspur have nice things? Spurs striker Dominic Solanke, the club’s record signing who made his debut on Monday against Leicester City, never missed a single match last season at Bournemouth, picked up an ankle injury in his first Spurs game and will miss tomorrow’s home opener against Everton.
You can’t make this stuff up, I swear.
Ange Postecoglou tried to minimize the injury, saying it didn’t look particularly serious and that Dom would be back soon, just not in time for tomorrow’s match.
“Dom picked up a knock in the last game. He got through the game but it flared up the day after and he’ll miss the game tomorrow. It’s an ankle injury, he copped it really early on, someone went across his ankle. It just depends on his recovery [when he returns], obviously we’ve got the international break. but it’s not serious.”
So I guess we all need to hope that Richarlison is back and at least close to full fitness, because he’s almost certainly going to be starting against his old club tomorrow. Richy had a cameo appearance at the end of the Leciester game where he flashed a header wide of the post, but that was his first appearance in a Spurs shirt since last spring when he picked up an injury of his own and later had surgery.
Normally this might provide an opportunity for Will Lankshear to potentially make his season debut if Richy isn’t 90 minutes fit, but he’s also out after picking up a mild hamstring injury while playing for Spurs’ U21 team this past week. Football.London is reporting that the injury will cause him to miss a couple weeks of action, but wasn’t serious enough to keep him out long term.
Additionally, Rodrigo Bentancur will also miss out on the Everton match under the Premier League’s concussion protocol after a head-to-head clash against Leciester, but this was expected and reported several days ago. Yves Bissouma is an option to return from his club-imposed suspension for whippets use to start in midfield, but Postecoglou seemed to suggest that he’s not the ONLY option tomorrow and we might see a surprise.
“Biss is available but we’ve got some options there. The whole idea of trying to bulk up the squad is for these situations. He’s available for selection. The bridge building continues.”
What does that mean? Boy, you got me, but it probably involves either Lucas Bergvall or Archie Gray making their first Premier League start.
Tottenham’s newest signing, Wilson Odobert, has secured his work permit and is now available for selection. Postecoglou didn’t get drawn in to whether we’d see Odobert in action tomorrow, but this was his first opportunity to talk about Wilson and what Spurs fans might expect from him.
“We went through the same sort of processes. He’s one that we identified really early on in the summer. It’s no secret we were looking for a wide player and Wilson was one of the ones we highlighted. We had to go through certain steps to get these things done. They’re not as straight forward as saying ‘that’s who we want, go and get them’. Obviously getting big Dom in was very important for us and we spent a lot of time working on that deal but once Dom was done there was one target and that was Wilson and that happened really quickly.
“I really like the way he plays in the wide areas. He’s different to our other wingers. He’s a dribbler, he likes to get into the front third. He can play either side, he can play central. He’s had a really good development if you look at his trajectory from PSG as a youngster to Troyes, playing in Ligue 1, and France and Premier League football before the age of 19. I think he ticked all the boxes for us and he’s a fantastic young bloke as well, so really happy to get him in.
“With all the players we’ve signed, I think irrespective of age we’re signing them because we think they can make an impact. I certainly see that with Wilson. He’s a year older than Archie and Lucas and they’ve already made an impact. We sign players because we’re still in that stage of building a team. I won’t bring players here who I don’t think can meaningfully contribute to us in the short-term and Wilson definitely will.”
Tottenham kick off at home against Everton tomorrow (Saturday) at 10 a.m. ET / 3 p.m. BST. The match is not televised in the USA or UK, but will be streamed on Peacock.