against Manchester City<\/a> and the wait for Solanke’s first-team return goes on.<\/p>\nSolanke picked up an ankle issue in the summer that meant he missed the majority of pre-season and it is one he never really fully recovered from. He has hardly trained with the first team since July.<\/p>\n
He was ruled out of facing his former club Bournemouth in August, but it was hoped that resting over the international break that followed would help resolve the injury.<\/p>\n
Frank continued to insist it was “nothing big” in the weeks that followed, though Solanke missed another five matches.<\/p>\n
It was then announced ahead of the clash with Bodo\/Glimt at the end of September that the forward would have “minor surgery” on his ankle. <\/p>\n
Solanke has been recovering from that in the six weeks since. <\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Solanke.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Last appearance: Dominic Solanke<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
What has Thomas Frank said?<\/p>\n
Confirming that Solanke would undergo surgery, Frank said at the time: “I don’t expect it to be long.”<\/p>\n
Updates in the subsequent weeks have followed a similar pattern of Solanke being on track but not yet being close to returning.<\/p>\n
The first update after the surgery was that it had gone well, and that Solanke was \u201cprogressing and going forward\u201d.<\/p>\n
On October 24, Frank said Solanke was “taking steps in the right direction every day, was on the grass again today on his own”. <\/p>\n
Three days later, the Spurs boss said the striker had made “steps forward” again.<\/p>\n
By the end of October, Frank confirmed that Solanke would not be available before the current international break, and that Spurs would be cautious with his recovery.<\/p>\n
He said: “We’re very aware of when we get Dom back, we hope – touch wood – we have him back and no setbacks, so we are very aware of doing it the right way.”<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ThomasFrankTottenham04112025.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Always the optimist: Thomas Frank<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
Frank added: “Most likely when he\u2019s back, he will come off the bench and then we will take it from there.”<\/p>\n
Solanke will be one of the first-team players at Hotspur Way over the international break and Spurs hope the fortnight will prove significant in his progress.<\/p>\n
“I think the international break will be the big deciding factor because we have two weeks there to push in the next steps,” Frank said on Friday last week.<\/p>\n
“As I say, it’s going forward.”<\/p>\n
When will Dominic Solanke be back?<\/p>\n
That much remains very much up in the air.<\/p>\n
Spurs are planning on playing a behind-closed-doors friendly during the international break, with Radu Dragusin in line to feature for his first minutes since suffering an ACL injury in January.<\/p>\n
However, Solanke is not expected to be ready to take part in that match.<\/p>\n
The striker is not yet back in team training and so a return against Arsenal straight after the international break on November 23 looks unlikely.<\/p>\n
Frank was asked last week whether fans could expect to see Solanke back on the pitch before the end of 2025 and the response was not entirely convincing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do hope so,” he said. “I would say let\u2019s see what happens after the international break.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still [making] steps forward. It\u2019s on track so far.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ankle issue is evidently one that Solanke is still managing and the minor surgery has not proved to be a quick fix.<\/p>\n
When he does return, Spurs want it to be for good. How far away that comeback is remains unclear. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is almost four months since Dominic Solanke led the line for Tottenham in their first pre-season match…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16117,59,101,843,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-257061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-dominic-solanke","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-thomas-frank","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Tottenham](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/newsletter_tottenham_embed_desktop.png\")
<\/p>\n