Bentancur flying to London after international duty, waiting on work permit

It was a big day for Tottenham Hotspur’s newest player Rodrigo Bentancur. Last evening, Bentancur scored for Uruguay in the first minute of their World Cup qualifying match against Venezuela, a low driven goal that kind of reminded me of one of those top of the box shots taken by Victor Wanyama or Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. The match ended in a 4-1 Uruguay win. Uruguay haven’t yet clinched qualification for the World Cup, but they’re currently in fourth and are looking like real contenders for an automatic berth to Qatar 2022.

Now, Bentancur is on a plane back to London, where he plans to join up with his new Tottenham Hotspur teammates for the first time. The Evening Standard reports that he’s still waiting on his work permit to come through, but it isn’t expected to be an issue. He’ll have to observe training (possibly in the same way Antonio Conte “observed” training) until that permit arrives, likely on Friday.

There’s better news for Dejan Kulusevski, Spurs’ other January signing. He’s already in London and looking good in his new Spurs training gear, and the Standard reports that his work permit is scheduled to arrive today.

All of this means that it’s probably unrealistic to expect either player to start in the FA Cup match against Brighton on Saturday. It wouldn’t shock me to see Kulu on the bench, but it takes more than three days to learn The Patterns™ and Spurs have an otherwise healthy squad to choose from, especially with Son Heung-Min and Cuti Romero back and (hopefully) in form.