Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen's ankle injury not as bad as first feared, confirms Mauricio Pochettino

Injured: Jan Vertonghen
Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images
Sam Long20 January 2017

Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen's injury is not as bad as first feared, Mauricio Pochettino has confirmed.

The 29-year-old injured his ankle as he slipped off the White Hart Lane pitch during last week's win over West Brom.

The Belgian defender was visibly distressed as he left the field, prompting Pochettino to admit that the defender's problem appeared to be a "very bad one".

Vertonghen is facing a minimum of six weeks on the sidelines with the injury, which is similar to the one that ended his Euro 2016 campaign prematurely, but Pochettino is upbeat about the diagnosis.

"We don't want to set the time limit. When your mind is positive it's easier to recover," Pochettino said.

"Jan Vertonghen is OK - he's very positive. We're pushing him a lot. We expect six weeks, less than at first."

Vertonghen will definitely miss Saturday's trip to Manchester City with Kevin Wimmer and Ben Davies expected to compete for a place in Tottenham's three-man defence.

And Pochettino has ruled out entering the transfer market to ease the loss of Vertonghen as Spurs fight for silverware on three fronts.

"We have plenty of players that can perform in his place and we are very happy with the squad and the players we have," Pochettino insisted.

Spurs currently occupy second place in the Premier League table and will open up a six-point gap over City with victory over Pep Guardiola's side on Saturday evening.

London football! Follow Man City vs Spurs live with Standard Sport. Click here for more information.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in