Spurs star Son Heung-Min set to miss 'a few weeks'

Simon Peach 03:23 01/10/2015
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  • Settling in nicely: Son.

    Son Heung-Min’s solid start to life at Tottenham has been halted by a foot injury that not only rules him out of the trip to Monaco but the next few weeks.

    He has shown no signs of his lofty £22 million (Dh122m) price tag weighing him down, seamlessly making the transition from Bayer Leverkusen to Spurs.

    Son has netted three goals in five appearances to date and would have had another was it not for the offside flag in the 4-1 Premier League win against Manchester City on Saturday.

    The South Korean international was replaced by Clinton N’jie with 13 minutes remaining of a match in which Tottenham confirmed the forward picked up an unspecified foot injury.

    Mauricio Pochettino was pressed on Son’s injury ahead of tonight’s Europa League tie in Monaco – a match the Spurs head coach confirmed the 23-year-old would miss, as well as his country’s upcoming matches against Kuwait and Jamaica.

    “Son got an injury during the game against Man City, a foot injury, and he is not here for this reason,” the Argentinian said. “He is injured and I think he will need to stay in England for recovery.

    “I don’t know what happened now but I think he will stay with us because it is impossible to travel with his national team.

    “I think that it will be a few weeks, but it is an injury that we need to assess every day. We are lucky that we have the international break now for two weeks and we hope it is a quick recovery.

    “We believe that it is not a big, big issue, but it is a different recovery with different players.”

    Son is joined on the sidelines by Ryan Mason, Mousa Dembele, Alex Pritchard and Nabil Bentaleb, while Kyle Walker has been rested for the Group J tie at new-look Monaco.

    A number of key players departed the principality in the wake of last season’s run to the Champions League quarter-finals – including their shock last-16 win against Arsenal – but Pochettino is not taking them lightly.

    “It is true that in the summer they lost some players like Anthony Martial, Aymen Abdennour and Layvin Kurzawa,” the Spurs boss added.

    “Still, they are a very good team, with young players. We will expect a very tough game.”

    Leonardo Jardim’s side have scored eight times in three games but have only managed one victory in that time and were held to a 3-3 draw by Guingamp at the weekend.

    Jardim has called on his side to sharpen up their defensive record, saying: “Right now, my team scores more but concedes more, too. Collectively, we haven’t been able to keep the lead on three occasions.”

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