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Tim Sherwood's thin bench just got a bit more robust, despite a long list of lingering injury problems. Tottenham Hotspur revealed that three previously injured players returned to training on Friday, which would theoretically put them in contention to make the 18-man squad to face Arsenal on Saturday.
Those players are Jermain Defoe, who had a minor hamstring problem, Lewis Holtby, who had a minor knee injury, and Andros Townsend, whose return is by far the most surprising of them all.
When Townsend went down hurt during the League Cup game against West Ham on December 18, he appeared to be in a lot of pain and Sherwood said he wasn't sure how long Townsend would be on the sidelines. As it turns out, he's fit enough to train after just over two weeks on the sidelines for the club.
There was some further good news, though you might choose to take this as very bad news.
Tim: "Sandro and Younes will hopefully be back in training next week."
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) January 3, 2014
Why is this bad news? Because he didn't mention Jan Vertonghen. Spurs optimistically thought he might return around Boxing Day, but there's no word on when he'll be fit.
Here's Spurs' extremely long injury list. Hopefully some of these players are just being rested for Arsenal and are not seriously injured.
Tim added that Erik (thigh), Kyle Naughton (ankle, hamstring), Paulinho (ankle), Gylfi (calf) and Jan (ankle) are all out.
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) January 3, 2014
You might notice that Emmanuel Adebayor is not listed there. Sherwood just said he had severe cramps during the United game and should be fit to face Arsenal.
