Mousa Dembele ruled out of Belgium’s World Cup Qualifier vs. Estonia

More bad news... maybe... for Tottenham Hotspur in this international break week. Today, Belgium manager Roberto Martinez confirmed that Tottenham midfielder Mousa Dembele and Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany have been ruled out of contention for the Belgium squad that will face Estonia on Sunday at the King Baudouin Stadium.

Oddly, while Martinez talked about his omission of Kompany – he left him out of Belgium’s friendly vs. the Netherlands because he “didn’t want to take any risks” with him – he did not explain why Dembele was ruled out. Dembele also didn’t feature for Belgium in their 1-1 draw against the Netherlands a couple of days ago.

So the easiest, and most depressing, explanation for this is that Dembele is somehow injured again. Maybe he picked up a knock or something in training and that’s what ruled him out. I don’t know, and we probably won’t know anything more unless either Belgium speaks out or he reports back to Tottenham.

The other, though less likely, scenario is that Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino put his foot down and had Dembele pulled. This, however, doesn’t seem much like Pochettino. He’s never really been the kind of manager that will play hard-ball with international teams, and seems to encourage his players to play for their countries if they are eligible. Besides, if he was going to do that with Dembele, you’d think he’d also have done it with Harry Kane, who is equally as important to Tottenham’s season as Mousa.

So we don’t know anything, but Occam’s Razor suggests he’s injured. Which is all kinds of bad and I hate everything. Someone hold me and tell me it will all be okay.