Antonio Conte has delivered a fresh injury update on his Tottenham squad, ahead of their first game of the 2022/23 Premier League season. Spurs' first fixture sees them welcome Southampton to N17 and Conte will hope his squad can get off to a positive start.
Throughout pre-season, the Lilywhites have had some injury issues. After Tottenham's final friendly against Roma, Conte seemed positive about most of his squad's fitness, but did pick out two players who still have more work to do.
"First of all, the most important thing is that all the players, except Oliver Skipp, have trained and trained well," he explained. "In this moment we have two players, Ivan Perisic and [Matt] Doherty, they have to continue to work and reach the peak of fitness because after a long injury they are struggling a lot. We need to have patience."
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Ben Davies sustained an ankle injury late on against Sevilla and although the Tottenham boss gave a positive update on his fitness, he didn't feature against Rangers or Roma. "It's positive that Ben Davies has recovered," Conte admitted after the defeat.
"I didn’t want to take a risk today because we have another week to work and to bring him in the best physical condition so he doesn’t feel pain in his ankle. Now he feels a bit of pain. He was ready to play today but I didn’t want to risk it."
There were more blows during the week as football.london reported that Yves Bissouma picked up a slight hamstring tweak against Jose Mourinho's side. Oliver Skipp will also miss the first few games of the 2022/23 season, as football.london understands the youngster has suffered a hairline fracture of his heel after an accident in training.
This is a shame for the midfielder, who had only just returned from his injury during the last campaign, which ended his season prematurely. Skipp was going strong during pre-season and football.london understands he was regarded as one of the top two fittest members of the squad by the Tottenham coaching staff.
Japhet Tanganga was also missing against Roma, which football.london understands was due to a sickness bug, but was spotted in training on Thursday morning. During his pre match press conference ahead of the clash against Southampton, Conte gave an update on his squad's fitness.
"At the moment we only have one player who will definitely miss Southampton and that is Skipp. Bissouma, another day [before the game] still, nothing serious, but I don't want to take a risk with anyone for the next games," he admitted.
This confirms the expectation that the 21-year-old will miss out on the opening of the season. Conte's comments suggest that Bissouma, Davies and Tanganga are fit to play but with him not wanting to "take a risk with anyone for the next games", it could see at least one of them miss out as a precaution.
The Italian also made some more comments on Perisic and his recovery from the injury he picked up last season. "It's normal after a serious injury to be struggling a bit to come back in the best physical condition. Honestly I'm surprised because he reduced his time to recover. We are really happy," Conte said.
"At the same time we are not worried but we have to pay a bit of attention to give him the right time to adapt himself to recover 100% after his injury. But I know him very well and he is a very good addition for us."
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