It took a couple days until the injured ankle belonging to Tottenham Hotspur striker and talisman Harry Kane was able to be scanned. It wasn’t until after the swelling subsided that a true, full assessment of the joint could be done, and once it was the club’s worst fears came true- Kane will be out of commission for about a month and a half due to severe ligament damage.
Kane suffered the injury in Tottenham’s 1-0 loss at home to Manchester United in a Premier League fixture this past Sunday. Obviously, this is a major game changer when it comes to betting on the top four this season. Wagering on who finishes in the top four positions in the table in a given year is kind of like taking a spin at the roulette table. There are essentially six places: Spurs, United, Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea where those four balls will land. How it all ends up is subject to a lot of variability, caused by many significant factors.
Here is the official statement from Spurs:
“Following preliminary assessments, we can confirm that Harry Kane has damaged ligaments in his left ankle, sustained during Sunday’s match. He will continue to be monitored by our medical staff as he commences rehabilitation and is expected to return to training in early March.”
With the young superstar out of action for six weeks, he will now miss critical league clashes against Chelsea and Arsenal down the stretch of the season. It goes without saying just how much of a negative impact this development will now have on the side’s top four chances.
With so many critically important games coming up, it’s a massive blow as the north London side is also losing forward Son Heung-min to international duty with South Korea in the Asian Cup.
Potentially, Son could be gone until the end of the month, and with both the South Korean scoring sensation and the face of Spurs and the England national team unavailable for a considerable amount of time, manager Mauricio Pochettino now has a major selection headache in the final third to deal with.
The Kane news is a major setback for Spurs’ European ambitions as well. He is now out for the first leg of the Champions League last-16 tie with Borussia Dortmund next month. His recovery timetable puts him in line to possibly return for the second leg on March 5, maybe. In addition to the UCL clash with BVB, Spurs also have two cup clashes between now and the end of the projected Harry Kane injury timetable.
In other words, there will be no Harry Kane for Spurs’ FA Cup and EFL Cup ties either. This is obviously a major setback in the side’s quest to end the club’s very long trophy drought.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.