Tottenham Hotspur are currently in Hong Kong and preparing for the first stop of their Asia tour — a preseason friendly against arch-rivals Arsenal. Shortly after landing, Spurs manager Thomas Frank gave an interview to the assembled media about the upcoming match, transfer plans, Morgan Gibbs-White, and squad injuries.
Of all of it, the injuries were the most interesting. Tottenham left a number of players at home in this one, including Dejan Kulusevski, Radu Dragusin, and Manor Solomon. Two late
additions to the scratch list were Destiny Udogie, who pulled out of Spurs’ friendly last week after he “felt something” in warm-up, and new signing Kota Takai, who either arrived at preseason with an injury or did something in training.
Frank gave a short update on both Destiny and Takai, and welp, the news could be better.
“Kota’s got plantar fascia unfortunately. I don’t know exactly the scale of it, weeks. Destiny has got a knee injury that we are assessing at the moment that just kept him out of the pre-season tour. When we know more, we will update more.”
Ugh. As anyone who has ever been a runner and suffered from it can tell you, plantar fasciitis is a nasty injury that can take a long time to heal. Frank’s assessment of “weeks” is both unfortunate and probably pretty likely. That’s not a great sign for Takai and again probably leaves Spurs short handed on the defensive end to begin the Premier League season.
As for Destiny, we don’t know the extent of the knee injury he’s suffering from, but hopefully it isn’t too bad. It’s bad enough that he was left back in London while the rest of the squad jets off to Hong Kong and Seoul, but maybe that ends up being a good thing? It will allow Djed Spence, Ben Davies and Pedro Porro to get extra minutes, and it also probably means first team preseason minutes at left back for Jamie Donley, who could use them.
Elsewhere, Frank talked a little about Mikey Moore, who is expected to finalize a season-long loan to Glasgow Rangers in the Scottish Premier League very soon. Frank suggested that a loan to a club at the top of its league like Rangers and the first team opportunities it provides will be very good for Moore’s development.
“It is very important. Mikey is a big talent. I’m really excited about his future here at Tottenham. I think for all players but especially younger players they need consistent first-team football into their bodies. I think if we can find the right option we will do that.“
Tottenham’s preseason friendly against Arsenal kicks off this Thursday at 7:30 a.m. in Hong Kong. The match is not broadcast or streamed in the UK apart from on SpursPLAY, Tottenham’s in-house streaming service, but will be streamed on both Paramount+ and CBS Sports Golazo in the United States.
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