So far it appears that the casualties from Tuesday night’s Euro Qualifiers and friendlies are thankfully thin on the ground.
Aside from the ankle injury sustained by Theo Walcott, there are some slight concerns over Jermain Defoe’s availability for Tottenham’s trip to the Hawthorns with the striker suffering a knock to his ankle last night. Despite being stretchered from the field, Defoe is optimistic that he’ll be in the mix against the Baggies.
There are some reports that Fulham’s Moussa Dembele sustained an injury in Belgium’s 3-2 defeat in Turkey. We’ve yet to get any official confirmation on that but, until we hear otherwise, we have to consider him as a slight doubt going into the weekend clash with Wolves – a shame considering the potential he offers following his impressive showing at Blackpool last time out…
There were a few players returning from knocks last night, including Man City’s Vincent Kompany who overcame a muscle injury to start for Belgium, only to see red in the second-half and earn an early bath. He’ll be fresh enough for City’s clash with Blackburn at least.
Bolton’s Johan Elmander also recovered from a head injury to appear from the subs bench in Sweden’s 6-0 routing of San Marino. Birmingham’s Seb Larsson played the entire 90 minutes in that game and provided the assist for Andreas Granqvist’s goal.
Tottenham’s Dutch master Rafael van der Vaart started Holland’s win over Finland but was none too impressed with his left-wing role, or the fact he was subbed on the hour-mark. Again, having being sparred the full 90, Van der Vaart should at least be rested enough to be considered by Harry Redknapp for the trip to West Brom. The availability of Luka Modric could cloud matters however – the Croatian came through 90 minutes against Greece last night and must surely be in line for a recall after missing the trip to Stoke last time out.
Further knocks and scrapes will doubtless materialise as we near the weekend but for now at least, our Fantasy squads look largely unaffected by the international break. Keep an eye on the tweets and the Injuries and Bans table for the latest of course.
