Returning wounded to help revitalise Spurs insists Vertonghen

Jan Vertonghen is convinced the collection of soon to be returning players can help propel the club back up the Premier League table after their recent struggles.

A heavy defeat away to Manchester City last week left us an uninspiring seventh and counting the cost of what has been an extremely bruising start to a season in which aspirations were high for a squad that appeared to have greater depth than those that had competed for the title in recent years.

However an an article by ESPN has said a a raft of injuries have hit us hard, with Moussa Dembele, Harry Winks, Danny Rose and Erik Lamela spending much of the season on the sidelines, the latter two having already missed the end of last season.

It goes on to say that Centre-back Toby Alderweireld is not expected to return until February whilst Victor Wanyama is only just stepping up his recovery from a knee cartilage problem that has sidelined him since the second week of the season.

However it does say that with Mauricio Pochettino’s squad numbers starting to swell Vertonghen is optimistic that Spurs can mount a climb up the table even if league leaders Manchester City, 21 points ahead, look out of sight.”Obviously we lost 4-1 and City played very well but we can – and will – do a lot better in the next couple of games,” Vertonghen told ESPN.

“We’ve got a lot of guys coming back from injuries – there’s still a couple out of course – but I think we’re looking very good at the moment.”

It adds that whilst many of our top six rivals spent the week vying for spots in the EFL Cup semi-finals we were able to recuperate ahead of the inevitably draining festive run of games.

It goes on to say that Pochettino has used the time to drill his squad on fundamentals including set pieces and shape however Vertonghen says the Spurs squad have also used the break as a time to reflect on their recent achievements.

“It’s good for us to get together, to know what we’ve achieved in the last couple of seasons,”:he added. “We still have the same group and we’re still with each other. I see no reason not to get back on track during Christmas.A bit of luck is missing this year, but only Kyle Walker left us from that team [last summer, when he joined Manchester City] and I see no reason we can’t do the same again.”

Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Related Topics

Have something to tell us about this article? Let us know