Postecoglou disagrees with Maddison's worrying Tottenham injury diagnosis

06 December 2023 , 16:06

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Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou (Image: James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou has offered an update on James Maddison's recovery from an ankle injury he picked up against Chelsea last month.

Maddison has since missed Tottenham's games against Wolves, Aston Villa and Manchester City and revealed in a recent interview with former Premier League goalkeeper Ben Foster for Amazon Prime that the injury was a "slow burner".

He said: "It's healing well, it's a bit of a slow burner which is obviously frustrating because like you said, I started the season so well. But it's healing, slowly but surely. I've had a couple [of injuries], this is probably the longest one I've had if it's three months.

"I've never really gone past that. It's frustrating, you know what it's like being injured, every day is tough, especially at Spurs, the training ground has got the big window so the physio room is just looking perfectly out to the training pitch watching all the lads train and prepare for the games at the minute.

"You have that helpless feeling but it's recovering well. It's going to take a bit of time, you've got to just accept it and then crack on with the rehab." However, Postecoglou has now responded to Maddison's comments, cracking a joke about the midfielder's medical expertise.

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"I'm not sure about James' medical qualifications, whether we should go with his diagnosis," Postecoglou said ahead of Spurs' game against West Ham on Thursday. "I'll leave it to the medical team. As far as I know, it's going along OK."

Although Maddison will not be back in action when Tottenham host the Hammers, Postecoglou will welcome back Cristian Romero following his three-game suspension for a straight red card that was also picked up against Chelsea last month.

James Maddison is currently out of action with an ankle injury (Getty Images)

"Great to have him back because he's the only recognised centre-back we have fit at the moment because Micky van de Ven, Eric Dier and Ashley Phillips are all out so just to have him back in the team is obviously good," Postecoglou added.

"But he's also fantastic player, he's a leader in group. We lost Madders and him after the Chelsea game so a lot of that [leadership responsibility] fell on Sonny's shoulders so from a leadership perspective good to have him back.

"I've not had to have a word to him about it [discipline]. It's part of who he is as a player, he brings a physicality to it. He knows when he oversteps mark the whole group pays a price so it's up to him to maintain discipline I know he can show. But more importantly he's such a strong presence on the field and in during the week so good to have him back.

Matthew Cooper