Injury-ravaged Tottenham hit by sickness bug ahead of crucial Newcastle clash

By George Sessions, PA

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou has been dealt another selection problem with a sickness bug running through his squad this week.

Spurs were already set to be without nine players for Saturday’s visit of Newcastle after Destiny Udogie suffered a hamstring injury in Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Wolves and Rodrigo Bentancur received his fifth yellow card of the Premier League season.

However, Postecoglou will also have to make a late call on a handful of players who were unable to train before Newcastle make the trip to north London.

“It looks around the six-week mark for him,” Postecoglou said of Udogie.

“Obviously we lose Bentancur suspended. None of the injured ones are kind of back yet and we had a bit of an illness running through the squad as well.

“So, a few missing training, but that’s alright. We’ll be OK.”

Postecoglou acknowledged the need for 12th-placed Spurs to get back on track after four defeats from their last six league fixtures, but they will face one of the in-form teams in the division in Newcastle.

Newcastle were 12th at the start of December, but four consecutive wins has them fifth and firmly in the race for Champions League qualification.

Tottenham have at least had a rare clear midweek to recharge after a busy December where they played nine matches, which included five fixtures across 14 days.

“I guess it helps but it is not going to totally refuel the tank in terms of where we want to be because we’re still dealing with a small number of players,” Postecoglou added.

“Again we’re going into a really busy period, January is massively busy for us with big games and it will not be long before it banks up again, but it was good for the players to have a couple of days.

“As much mentally as anything else to clear their heads and get away from the club to spend time with their families.

“From that perspective it has definitely been beneficial and they are a very, very resilient group. They are not willing to lay down, they are fighting tooth and nail to make sure we turn this around and it’s a credit to them.

“Big game for us tomorrow. From a league context, we need to start picking up points for sure and winning these games, so all our focus is on that.”

A timeline was provided for various Spurs players currently sidelined with Guglielmo Vicario the longest away with his return from a fractured ankle pencilled in for late February, while centre-backs Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero and Ben Davies are set for end of January returns.

Udogie will come back at some point in February and even though Mikey Moore and Richarlison are due to be available next week, Postecoglou is in desperate need of reinforcements this month, but insisted the club will not panic.

He added: “It’s no secret, we need to bolster our numbers up a little bit, so the club’s working hard on that.

“January is not an easy month, we understand it’s not an easy time to bring people in particularly.

“At the same time, we still want to make sure we do what we think is the best thing for us rather than sort of panic and bring people in who aren’t going to be a suitable fit.”