Tottenham are facing up to another long-term injury as they await scan results on the leg injury suffered by Luka Modric in yesterday’s 1-1 draw with West Brom.
Modric opened the scoring against the Baggies and sparkled in the role behind lone striker Roman Pavlyuchenko, only to sustain an injury in a challenge with Albion’s Gonzalo Jara.
The Croation was duly subbed on 32 minutes and left the Hawthorns on crutches. There are fears that Modric has suffered a blow directly on the fibula which he broke last year – an injury that saw him sidelined for a number of months.
A concerned Harry Redknapp sounded far from optimistic in his post-match comments…
“He is going for a scan but he broke the bone in his leg last year against Birmingham and he got a kick on the same spot today. He is in a lot of pain today. It doesn’t look great…We will wait and see what the scan says but it certainly doesn’t look very good. We don’t know yet if the leg is broken again. If he has got another break, you are talking months again.”
The one major compensation for Redknapp is that new signing Rafael Van der Vaart is a ready-made replacement to take up the mantle of his creative force in midfield. He demonstrated on Saturday that he has the potential to easily surpass Modric in terms of Fantasy returns.
Van der Vaart is available for 7.5 in the Fantasy Premier League game – the same as the initial price for Modric, putting him in the same bracket as the likes of Saloman Kalou, Abou Diaby and Shaun Wright-Phillips. If Modric is sidelined for a period of months, it’s a good bet that Van der Vaart will offer more starting place security than that little selection.
Can he offer the returns to justify the gamble? Further analysis of today’s performance offers encouraging signs.
Our Members can study his Opta statistics in detail of course, but a brief scan shows that Van der Vaart was hugely influential in terms of touches and most significantly contributed 5 key passes against West Brom (passes that lead to goal attempts). To put that into perspective – Gareth Bale leads that particular stat for Spurs this season – over his 4 starts he’s made at total of 6 key passes.
The Dutchman also fired in 3 attempts on goal and took control of a couple of direct free-kicks and corners. It’s early days but the statistics appear to confirm the popular view that Van der Vaart offers a sharper goal threat than Modric, in addition to being a key figure in terms of assists and set-pieces contribution.
Harry Redknapp can take some comfort from that, while us Fantasy Managers need to monitor the performances of Van der Vaart over the next few weeks, particularly if the scan on the injury to Modric predicts another grim prognosis for the Croatian.