Tottenham team news update: Poch set to be without 5 players for Bournemouth trip

Tottenham will be looking for a win to secure a top four place when they take on Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday lunchtime.

Ahead of the game, Mauricio Pochettino has been speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference this afternoon and he’s provided a team news update including the latest on a number of his first team squad.

Understandably, the focus was on Jan Vertonghen after the defender was forced off during Tottenham’s Champions League semi-final defeat to Ajax on Tuesday night following a clash of heads with Toby Alderweireld.

The Belgian international looked uneasy on his feet as he was helped off the field and down the tunnel after initially being given the all-clear by club doctors to continue – which led to criticism they hadn’t properly checked for signs of concussion.

Pochettino insists the doctors followed protocol but he hasn’t decided whether Vertonghen will be involved against Bournemouth this weekend. The centre-back saw a specialist earlier today and Spurs will wait for the report to come back before making any decision but I’d be shocked if Vertonghen was selected to start.

Pochettino is quoted as saying by Football London:

How is Jan Vertonghen?

Today at 12pm was an appointment with a specialist, we still didn’t receive the report. But after the game was good, he was more relaxed, I think he felt better. Now we need to receive the report from the specialist that the appointment was one hour and 20 minutes ago

Regardless of the results of that will you take him out of the firing line at Bournemouth?

We don’t know. We still need to wait. That’s going to be a decision for the medical staff. We need to wait. We cannot guess now. We hope it’s not a big issue, we hope he can be available as soon as possible.

Is it worth risking him though?

We followed the protocol. You can see on TV all that happened. Our doctor and medical staff behaved very well, they were excellent, followed the protocol. I respect because I think I’m professional about football, not medicine. All decisions about health are for medical staff. The assessments on concussion were negative, that’s why the player was allowed to play. A few seconds after that was a completely different thing, he start to feel no good. After that we changed in that moment, and he was out of the pitch.

Pochettino has been having to deal with a number of injuries in recent weeks but the Tottenham boss isn’t sure any of his absentees will be fit to return this weekend with Hueng-min Son the only player guaranteed to be available again after serving a European ban in midweek.

When asked if any of his injured players will be back over the next few games, Pochettino continued:

I don’t know. It’s going to be difficult, yes. The only one who for sure has the possibility to be available is Son, who was suspended, but the rest we don’t know.

The north Londoners issued a team news update on TottenhamHotspur.com earlier today which confirmed that Serge Aurier is in the final stages of his rehabilitation following a hamstring injury so he’s not expected to be available this weekend.

Harry Kane is still undergoing treatment on his ankle ligament injury and won’t be involved this weekend while Erik Lamela is also set to miss the trip to the south coast due to an on-going hamstring injury.

Harry Winks is highly unlikely to feature in any of Tottenham’s remaining games after undergoing surgery on a niggling groin problem so Spurs could be without five first team players against Bournemouth this weekend.