Thomas Frank has provided a timeline for Dominic Solanke’s return to fitness after the Tottenham striker underwent surgery.
In his first interview as the Tottenham head coach in the summer, Frank named Solanke as one of the players he is most looking forward to working with.
However, the England international’s niggling injury has meant that he is still waiting to make his first start under the Dane.
Frank admitted last week that Solanke’s injury is proving trickier to manage than initially thought, and there has since been further bad news about the striker.
How long will Dominic Solanke be out for at Tottenham?
On Monday, Frank confirmed that the Spurs centre-forward has undergone minor surgery to fix the issue.
The Tottenham boss has now confirmed that Solanke is ruled out for the next couple of weeks and suggested that the club will have a clear timeline on the striker’s return after mid-October.
Frank said (via Football.London): “It’s a small procedure. So that will mean he’s not ready for today, of course. And of course, Leeds he’s out as well. We will have more news about time frame after the international break. But I don’t expect it to be long.”
Thomas Frank addresses the ‘wasted month’ for Solanke
This news comes as a bit of deja vu for Spurs fans, who also saw Tottenham initially play down the injuries to Dejan Kulusevski and Micky van de Ven last season, before it became clear that their problems were more severe than initially thought.
However, Frank has now defended Tottenham’s handling of Solanke’s injury, pointing out that all players want to avoid surgery unless they absolutely need it.
When asked if it has been a wasted month trying to get the striker back into training, the Spurs boss responded: “I think you can look at it from two ways. That’s the easy answer, but it’s not that easy. If we knew we could have done the surgery a month ago, we probably would have done it.
“So for me, I’m always like I imagine, ‘oh, it is what it is, we deal from now’ No doubt that the way we dealt with this was because we thought that was the right way, because I think in general, no one wants a surgery, no matter how small it is.”