EPL News: Tottenham Hotsupur's without striker Jermain Defoe till December
Tottenham Hotspur's domestic and European ambitions have taken a major blow whilst causing the club to take a giant step backwards. The team’s star striker Jermain Defoe has been ruled out for participation in any games till around three months or more.
Defoe managed to pick up a knock on his right ankle in England's three goals to one win over Switzerland on Tuesday night. He has already gone under the knife to repair some torn ligaments but doctors have reported that the injury is worse than they expected so it will take him longer to recover.
It was initially believed that the twenty seven year old mercurial forward would be sidelined for a maximum of six weeks, which would have ruled him out of some key matches against; Werder Bremen, FC Twente and Tottenham’s arch rivals, Arsenal.
However that does not seem to be the case any more as the clubs medic's have now estimated that Defoe will be back by mid-December. This could mean that the player could potentially miss out on Tottenham's first ever appearance in the Champions Leagues group stages, which include two matches against the current holders of the Cup, Inter Milan.
Nevertheless there is some partially good news for Tottenham and their manager Harry Redknapp and that is the fact that Robbie Keane, Peter Crouch and Roman Pavlyuchenko are still available in the squad to replace the forward when Defoe won’t be available. Defoe was the clubs leading goals scorer last season, having netted twenty four goals, therefore his presence will definitely be missed.
Defoe had previously cancelled his surgery in remembrance of the aftermath on his previous one. Earlier Defoe was operated on his groin but since then the English international had been suffering a long term discomfort in that area. Ultimately Defoe decided not to go through with the operation because it was assumed that he would have had to be sidelined for four weeks as an end result.
Defoe's absence in the coming weeks will not only affect Tottenham but also the English national side. The Italian manager of the Three Lions Fabio Capello will be forced to field a team without one of his favourite strikers against Montenegro in a Euro 2012 qualifier and a friendly against France as well.
However to add insult to injure there is some more bad news for Tottenham. Michael Dawson who plays as a centre back for both club and country is also estimated to be out for around two months after picking up a knee injure in a Euro 2012 qualifier game against Bulgaria.
Tottenham will have to pull together through this dark period, if they wish to make their first ever qualification into the Champions League memorable.
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