Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou revealed Wednesday he’d been dealt another injury setback when confirming Cristian Romero will miss the next four to five weeks with a hamstring strain.
The 25-year-old Argentina centre-back’s absence is all the more galling for Spurs as Romero only returned from a three-match suspension at the beginning of December.
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Romero suffered the injury during last weekend’s 2-1 victory against Everton with Postecoglou, speaking ahead of Thursday’s match at Brighton, saying: “Not so great with Romero.
“He had a scan the other day and has got a hamstring strain. We are looking at probably four or five weeks for him.
“Disappointing to lose him, for sure. We obviously missed him with the suspension and now we’ve just got him back and he steadied things up.
“Now he will be missing again for quite a chunk of time.”
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Romero’s fellow central defender Micky van de Ven remains sidelined with a hamstring injury of his own sustained during a 4-1 loss to Chelsea in November.
Van de Ven suggested last week he could be back training in a fortnight, with a cautious Postecoglou hinting the January 14 trip to Manchester United as a comeback date for the player.
“He is getting closer,” Postecoglou said. “We will see him some time in January. I don’t think Burnley but Man United on the 14th potentially “I don’t look at comeback dates until I see them training with us and he hasn’t been part of the group.
“He is not due to be part of the group this week so we’ll see how he is going at the end of this week. Once they start training with the group, that’s when we start thinking about if they are available.
“He is at the tail end of it, for sure and at some point, middle of January he could be available but how we use him after such a long absence will be depending on where he is at.”
Tottenham Hotspur have also recalled forward Dane Scarlett from his season-long loan at Ipswich, the Premier League club said Wednesday.
Scarlett made 12 appearances for the English Championship promotion candidates after he joined in August but struggled for first-team football at Portman Road.
Spurs are set to be without captain Son Heung-min for a month while he is away on international duty with South Korea at the Asian Cup.
Tottenham academy graduate Scarlett will provide forward back-up for manager Ange Postecoglou, who remains without James Maddison, Manor Solomon and Ivan Perisic due to injuries.
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Spurs could leapfrog Aston Villa into third place in the Premier League with victory at Brighton.
Postecoglou was linked with the Brighton job when Graham Potter left to join Chelsea last September before the Seagulls appointed Roberto De Zerbi.
But the Spurs boss said there was never a realistic prospect of him leaving Scottish champions Celtic mid-season.
“No-one knew about me a year ago mate,” Postecoglou joked. “No, look I didn’t have discussions with Brighton at the time and to be honest there wasn’t really the possibility that I would leave Celtic mid-season.
“I had only been there a year-and-a-half and even though there was nothing real and people weren’t really saying to me that clubs wanted to talk to me, I kind of knew in my mind that if I was going to do it, it would have to be after the second year because I was never going to leave within the year.”