Tottenham defender’s injury is a ‘massive blow’, says Villas-Boas

By Ben Pearce, Tottenham correspondent
Thursday, August 30, 2012
5:09 PM

Andre Villas-Boas admits that it is a “massive blow” to lose Younes Kaboul, who has undergone knee surgery and will be out of action for four months.

Kaboul has struggled with his knee since the end of last season, when he limped out of the final game at home against Fulham and consequently missed out on France’s European Championship campaign.

The 26-year-old was also absent from Spurs’ final pre-season friendly against Valencia in Spain and, although he was fit to play throughout the opening game of the campaign at Newcastle, he was unable to face West Brom on Saturday.

Villas-Boas reported last week that Kaboul had been to see a specialist – and the defender has now undergone an operation which could rule him out until the new year.

“He had to have an operation on his patella tendon,” said Villas-Boas. “He had continuously damaged the patella tendon during all of these last three months, and we’ve decided that conservative treatment wouldn’t take him any further.

“Unfortunately for us it’s a massive blow, and the player had to go through an operation to put the knee right. We’re looking at three to four months out.

“He played in the game at Newcastle and made a fantastic partnership with William Gallas. We couldn’t take the risk for the game at West Brom because he was not feeling a lot of confidence in the stability of the knee - and because of that we’ve decided to go ahead with an operation

“He’s a massive player and he’s also been cherished a lot in the dressing room, because he’s a big personality. He has tremendous human qualities that we appreciate.

“He’s a player that treats everyone very well so obviously we’re extremely disappointed. I just spoke to him on the phone and we’ll just treat this day as the first day of his recovery.”

Kaboul’s injury could affect Michael Dawson’s future, given that the England international looked set to leave last week after engaging in talks with QPR.

However, Villas-Boas says Tottenham were aware that they might lose Kaboul when they accepted Rangers’ offer.

“We’ve known about this possibility for quite some time, and this was even told in the discussions that I had with Michael,” said Villas-Boas.

“I think when you set up a squad you normally start with four central defenders - that’s the ideal number, to spread opportunities around everybody.

“There are squads who prefer to go with three experienced and one young central defender coming through, so at the moment this leaves us with this current situation. “We have Younes out for three to four months and we have four top central defenders, so we’re happy with the situation as it stands.”

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