Good news if you’re a Tottenham Hotspur fan who enjoys watching Xavi Simons play for Spurs! A new report in the Times of London by Tom Allnutt says that Simons, who injured his ACL at the end of last season while desperately fighting for Tottenham’s Premier League survival, is “ahead of schedule” in his recovery and could be reintegrated into Tottenham’s training as soon as this month.
I found the Times of London article, and it’s regrettably behind a paywall that I, uh, haven’t found a way around yet, so all we have to go on is the tweet above. But it’s a pretty good tweet!
I’ll be honest, when Xavi went down at the end of last season I really didn’t think we’d see him, like James Maddison, before April or May. ACL injuries are no joke. So it’s fantastic to read that his recovery is ahead of schedule despite 7 months on the sidelines and missing the World Cup with the Netherlands this summer.
I think I can say with some confidence that this new physio team at Tottenham will not take any chances with Xavi’s recovery and return, and I wouldn’t expect we’ll see him on the bench or getting late rotation minutes before, say, the December holiday fixtures at the earliest. As we’ve seen with Maddison and with Dejan Kulusevski, Spurs are taking a soft-glove approach to player recovery and aren’t going to risk him having a setback.
That said, I’ve been surprised before, so who knows! And anyway, simply coming back seven months after a serious knee injury is a pretty speedy recovery and definitely impressive. We could also use him and his creativity, and I’m already starting to salivate about Xavi behind the Tottenham front line that’s currently gelling right now.
Maybe we’ll have a Xavi-shaped present under our collective Christmas tree this year!