If there was a shroud over Tottenham Hotspur’s 4-0 win over Aston Villa at Villa Park on Sunday, it was the injury-related substitution of Micky van de Ven. The young Dutchman was subbed off early in the second half after picking up what looked like a mild injury to his hamstring. It resulted in the first significant Premier League match minutes for Radu Dragusin, and the game state of the second half meant that Spurs didn’t miss Micky’s presence nearly as much as they might have in other circumstances.
Van de Ven’s injury didn’t look THAT serious in real time — at least it was nothing like when Micky pulled up lame holding the back of his leg the first time he got injured this season. But he still needed to be assessed, and that assessment was scheduled to take place this afternoon.
According to (our good friend) Matt Law in the Telegraph (£), Spurs are expected to receive the results of Micky’s scan today, but we might not know the results until Friday… unless it’s really bad. The expectation is that it’s not something that, say, would require surgery, but it could keep Van de Ven out of action until after the upcoming international break. So no news is, very likely, good news.
And in fact, that break is somewhat fortuitously timed. While I’d say it’s probably unlikely that Micky plays this weekend at Fulham, it’ll give an extra two weeks for him to recuperate and hopefully get back to fitness in time for when Spurs host Luton on March 30.
That said, if it really is a hamstring issue that would be the second in less than a year, and that’s a little worrisome. You can argue that these sorts of muscle/tendon injuries are somewhat baked into Ange Postecoglou’s tactics, and they’re something we should kind of make our peace with as we continue to play his up-tempo and high-pressing style. If that’s the case, it really is a good thing that we spent a good amount of money for good defensive depth in Dragusin, because we’ll need him.