Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou has delivered the crushing news that James Maddison and Micky van de Ven will remain sidelined with injuries for the remainder of the calendar year.
Both players failed to make it to half time in Monday's 4-1 London derby defeat to Chelsea, as Van de Ven pulled up with what appeared to be a serious hamstring injury as he tracked back.
The Dutch defender went down in agony before being helped off the pitch by the medical team, and at the same time, Maddison damaged his ankle while sliding in the Chelsea penalty box.
Postecoglou conceded straight away that Van de Ven's issue appeared to be a serious one, although he was none the wiser about the severity of Maddison's problem after the playmaker trudged off the field.
However, Maddison withdrew from the England squad for November's Euro 2024 qualifiers with Malta and North Macedonia on Friday morning, and Postecoglou confirmed the worst in his pre-Wolverhampton Wanderers press conference.
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"Don't get a lot of time to enjoy the moment. There's a fair bit happened after Monday night. Micky with a hamstring injury we knew was fairly significant. We're looking at a couple of months into the new year," football.london quotes Postecoglou as saying.
"Madders is a lot worse than we thought. He came off with an ankle injury, and the next day wasn't great so we sent him off for a scan. Probably into the new year for him."
Maddison and Van de Ven represent two of seven long-term injury concerns for a ravaged Tottenham, who are also coping without Ivan Perisic, Ryan Sessegnon, Manor Solomon and Alfie Whiteman for the time being.
In addition, Richarlison recently underwent surgery to treat a "chronic" groin problem, which had forced the Brazilian striker to play through "unbearable" pain over the past several months.
Spurs said on Thursday that Richarlison would make a training comeback in the "coming weeks" if all goes to plan, and Postecoglou has also affirmed that the ex-Everton man ought to be back on the field before Christmas.
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"Richy had the operation, which we'd kind of scheduled anyway because Richy has been battling with it from day one and we thought with the international break coming up we thought it would be a good time to get it done. He should only be a month if everything goes well so not too long after the international break," the Australian added.
However, Postecoglou was able to deliver one positive update on the injury front, as Ben Davies has recovered from the ankle issue which has kept him out of Spurs' last two matches.
Speaking to Spurs' social media channels before facing the press, Postecoglou added: "The only one that's back and available is Ben Davies, which is good because we're going to need him."
Davies will be expected to slot straight into a Destiny Udogie-less Tottenham rearguard as the Italian serves a one-game ban for his sending-off against Chelsea, while Eric Dier will fill in for Cristian Romero during his three-game suspension.
Davies's return could see the Welshman deployed centrally too, as Emerson Royal is a candidate to start at left-back at Molineux, while 18-year-old Ashley Phillips represents another option for Postecoglou.
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