Injured Spurs defender set to miss AVB’s first home game against West Brom

By Ben Pearce, Tottenham correspondent
Thursday, August 23, 2012
5:00 PM

Younes Kaboul is set to miss Tottenham’s clash with West Brom on Saturday with a knee injury, while Giovani Dos Santos is also out of action.

Kaboul missed the European Championship with a knee problem which the former France boss Laurent Blanc described as “an old injury he’s had for two or three years”.

The defender played throughout the weekend’s 2-1 defeat at Newcastle, but the latest development will concern Lilywhites fans - particularly given that Michael Dawson is currently in talks with QPR about a move away from White Hart Lane. However, Villas-Boas has calmed fears over a long-term lay-off.

“Younes has a patella tendon pain so he went to see the specialists, so he’s out of the game,” said the head coach. “I don’t think it’s long-term, if anything is there we are hoping for something quick.

“Scotty [Parker] is making good progress so we are looking at hopefully two more weeks to hopefully have him back in training.

“We have unfortunate news for Gio, who pulled his muscle today in training - and on the rest there are a couple of niggles but nothing serious.”

Saturday’s Premier League meeting with West Bromwich Albion will be Villas-Boas’ first match at White Hart Lane, and he is hoping to make the most of the home advantage.

“I’m extremely excited,” he said. “It’s going to be exciting to be at White Hart Lane. Last year I was under the impression that it’s one of the most difficult grounds to play at, and now it’s our home ground and we’ll have to take full advantage of that.

“We need to focus on a win, bearing in mind our last result. The performance was extremely good and we hope we can just take one more step and try to get the three points. It’s important to repay the fans for the fantastic support we had at Newcastle.

“West Brom had an amazing game against Liverpool, it couldn’t have gone any better than what they did – winning 3-0 on the first day of the season against Liverpool is something immense.

“Obviously Steve Clarke knew Liverpool well. He’s building on the great work that Roy Hodgson left at West Brom, and improving and making his own changes to the team, and I think the first game of their season was a great success for them.

“They are a major threat on the counter-attack. They’re a good, solid team defensively, but at the right time and through those counter-attacks they can subject you to big damage, so we have to be very aware of that.”

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