Holy Mother of God, this team is cursed. Thomas Frank gave his pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s Champions League group stage match against Eintracht Frankfurt. Remember earlier when there were reports from earlier today that noted Pedro Porro and Micky van de Ven were absent from training this morning before boarding the flight to Germany? According to Frank, Pedro Porro is injured and will miss about a month of action, while Van de Ven did not travel with the team to Germany and will not play tomorrow.
Oh, and there’s more — photos emerged on social media of what appeared to be Wilson Odobert and Randal Kolo Muani after both were involved in an automobile accident; both are fine, thankfully, and there aren’t any indications that they won’t be available on Wednesday.
“Kolo Muani and Wilson Odobert are both fine. They were unfortunately involved in a minor car accident. Everyone else involved is fine. It was a tyre blowing up. They will be travelling a little later tonight.
“Pedro has a hamstring injury and will be out for four weeks. Micky has something minor and hasn’t travelled but could be available for City.
“Pape [Matar Sarr] is available again and so is Joao Palhinha.”
You know how when something bad happens you think about it and say “well, at least things couldn’t get any worse”? Shows what you know — there’s ALWAYS something that could get worse. Pedro Porro has played just about every possible minute for Spurs before being withdrawn at halftime in Spurs’ weekend draw at Burnley. There were thoughts that the decision was either for rest and rotation purposes, or as a precautionary measure. Clearly it was neither.
I swear, y’all. I can’t remember a more cursed, snake-bitten season Spurs have had in the injury department, except I totally CAN remember one and it was last season. This team might be struggling for any number of reasons, but they also just seem to be very, very, very, VERY unlucky. Like, seriously? What’s next, a rain of frogs?
I’m sure this news isn’t welcome to Frank either, though as is his way he at least tried not to be completely doom and gloom about it.
“[The injuries are] definitely not a help to any of us. Of course we prefer to have the best players out on the pitch. Any coach wants that and any team-mate wants that. That’s why we have a squad though.
“We need to keep doing the right things and improve the things we want to do. Also getting players back. Dom is huge for us and he’s been out for six months. To have your main striker and top scorer out, I’d like to see other teams deal with that. He’s a physical beast and he’s been pushing himself.”
With Porro out I assume Djed Spence and Destiny Udogie will start, along with Cuti Romero and Kevin Danso in the back line. That also suggests that Jun’ai Byfield, who made his club debut against Dortmund, will be Spence’s backup, or the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency defender, since new signing Souza is not registered for the Champions League squad. Conor Gallagher and Yves Bissouma are also not eligible for the Champions League this round, but with Sarr, Palhinha, Archie Gray and Xavi Simons all (reportedly) available, there should be enough warm bodies to field a squad before we chuck a youth player in there.
Lordy lordy lord. What is going on?