Kazaiah Sterling returns from Doncaster loan temporarily after injury

For young Tottenham Hotspur striker Kazaiah Sterling, being sent out on loan this season to Doncaster Rovers was another chance to step into the spotlight as a first team member of a professional football club. And he started off well in his second stint in League One, tallying three goals and an assist in five appearances across all competitions.

However, Sterling picked up a thigh injury and has been sidelined for the past few weeks. Now he’s returning to Tottenham for additional treatment, according to the Doncaster Free Press. Rovers manager Darren Moore said the club underestimated what was going on with Kaz, thinking it was just a dead leg, but there’s something more serious happening.

“When you think of a dead leg you think it’s just a dead leg. So I think we have underestimated it. Even when it happened I’ll be honest I thought dead leg, which can be anywhere from four days to two weeks tops. But I think with the severity of it we’re just making sure there’s nothing that we’re not detecting or picking up.

“Since he got the injury he’s been away and we’ve nurtured him back, we’ve given him the treatment, he’s returned back to his parent club and he’s had a couple of scans. Hopefully he’s slowly getting back into training. It’s one of those where we’ve got to build him up.

“With Kazaiah his game is about energy, power and speed. He’s such an electrifying player that the last thing we want is for him to explode into a burst of speed and for something untoward to happen.”

Moore was clear that Kaz’s return to Tottenham doesn’t mean that his loan has been terminated — he’s back only because Spurs have a better setup in terms of physios and rehabilitation, and he’s expected to return to Doncaster as soon as he’s ready.

“We’re working together with Spurs. If it meant him going back to Spurs because it speeds up the recovery process and because of the man power they’ve got there and the equipment then great stuff.

“But he’s nearly there. We’ve just got to make sure that we take every precaution and make sure when he comes back he stays back. We missed him two or three weeks and we just thought it was a dead leg. But we’ve checked him out now and hopefully he’ll return soon.

“We just don’t want to miss anything. That’s the reason there’s been a lot of confusion with him. Hopefully we’ll know more this week. Could he be involved at the weekend? We’ll wait and see. The scans were clear but we’re just double checking one or two things. With both clubs working together I expect we’ll find out what it was. Hopefully it’ll be nothing and it’s a clean bill of health to kick on.”

Kaz is 20 and at the moment it doesn’t appear as though he has a clear path to the Tottenham first team. If I had to guess I’d say he’s likely going to be eventually sold to a League One or Championship level club, possibly this summer depending on how he does at Doncaster this year. Based on Moore’s comments, it sure looks like he has a future as a professional footballer, assuming he can get healthy again.