If you were paying close attention to Tottenham Hotspur’s players on international break, you probably took note of Spurs’ Dutch central defenders’ status. It was reported last week that Jan Paul van Hecke had withdrawn himself from international duty with the Netherlands after sustaining a foot injury, opting to return to Tottenham for rehabilitation rather than play the final two international matches. In addition, there were reports that his Netherlands and Spurs teammate Micky van de Ven had also picked up a hand injury after having a player land on it during the 2-1 win over Serbia.
That’s scary, and raised the spectre of neither of Spurs’ starting central defenders being available for Tottenham’s next match, a critical game against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday. Thankfully, however, a Dutch journalist is now giving us some good news. According to Joost Blaauwhof, neither injury is as bad as initially feared, and there’s a chance that one or both of Van der Ven and Van Hecke could be available to play against United.
That’s good news. While Spurs have two capable backups in Marcos Senesi and Tosin Adarabioyo, considering Spurs are winless in the league through five games and at are currently sitting 20th in the table, going into a critical away match without your starting central defense isn’t ideal. We don’t know yet the final status of either player and will probably need to wait for Roberto De Zerbi’s press conference ahead of the match, it’s still a bit of a relief.
Van Hecke, in particular, was thought to be out for the next 2-3 matches after a player stepped on his toe; it was described as “painful” but considering the recovery time it’s probably not turf toe, which can be pernicious and slow to heal. Van de Ven’s injury to his hand was unlikely to keep him out of action for long, since footballers famously do not use their hands while playing soccer. And anyway, we all remember Son Heung-Min playing several matches while nursing a literal broken arm in a cast. From the sound of things, Van Hecke’s injury would be more likely to keep him out of the United match than Van de Ven’s, but again we’ll need to wait for De Zerbi to know.
Anyway, after two weeks of practically full radio silence on the status of the men’s team, it’s nice to have a little good news on a Monday.