Victor Wanyama held out of Kenya squad out of injury concern

You can include Victor Wanyama amongst the Tottenham Hotspur players who will not be participating with their national teams during the upcoming international break. Kenya’s national team squad confirmed that Wanyama will not participate for the Harambee Stars in an AFCON qualifying match against Ghana as he is still recovering from a knee injury sustained in preseason.

However, Kenya manager Sébastien Migné chided Wanyama for a lack of “professionalism” for not reporting to Kenya to be examined by team doctors ahead of being ruled out. Migné specifically referred to Wanyama’s club teammate Hugo Lloris, who also is staying in London due to injury.

“We know Victor has been injured and it will not be possible to have him. Today is Wednesday, three days to the match, and if we were to have him, he would be here.

”But I think we should have some professionalism [at the KFA] because I see [Wanyama’s French teammate at Tottenham] Lloris Hugo was injured and he had to go to Paris to be checked by the national team doctors. So in future this is something we should consider.”

It does appear that Wanyama is being held out of the Kenya squad due to an abundance of caution by Tottenham. Spurs haven’t played Wanyama yet since he picked up an injury during Spurs’ preseason trip to the United States for the International Champions Cup, but he returned to full training last week and was on the bench for this past weekend’s match against Watford.

That suggests that he’s probably close to being ready to ease back into match fitness, but isn’t ready for 90 minutes of action, which is what he’d get as Kenya’s captain and best player. Still, it’s interesting that Spurs apparently want to keep him out entirely rather than let him report with restrictions on his minutes. Makes sense, though.

Wanyama, Lloris, and Christian Eriksen are the three Tottenham first team players who will be staying home during the international break, though Eriksen’s omission is due to a dispute between the Danish football federation and the Danish player’s union and has nothing to do with injury.