There was a glimmer of hope that, since we had not gotten a recent update on James Maddison’s knee injury, it might not be as bad as we feared. This morning, Tottenham Hotspur pretty much quashed those hopes. The club posted today that Maddison sustained a ruptured ACL, sustained during Spurs’ 2-2 preseason friendly draw against Newcastle in Seoul, South Korea.
Maddison will undergo surgery imminently and will then begin a long rehabilitation process, missing significant time.
The injury itself was essentially non-contact, but you could see immediately that it was a bad one. Maddison collapsed to the turf and put his hands over his face, and was eventually stretchered off the field in Korea. According to the BBC, Maddison underwent scans upon returning to London after the conclusion of Spurs’ tour to Asia, and he is expected to miss the majority of the 2025-26 season. The injury is to the same knee that he injured in May that forced him to miss the Europa League final in Bilbao.
This is, to put it mildly, catastrophic. Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski are the two natural 10s in Tottenham’s squad; Kulusevski is also injured with a knee injury and is expected to miss the first month of the new season. Maddison’s injury surely puts an emphasis on the 10 position with what’s left of the summer transfer window; it seems both irresponsible and insane not to target someone to play in Maddison and Kulusevski’s natural position as Spurs start a new campaign that includes Champions League football.
Recent rumors have linked Spurs to players such as Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott and Leicester City’s Bilal El Khannouss, but nothing as of yet appears imminent.
Does anyone have any good news to share? Because I can’t think of any at the moment.