Ange’s injury update on Pape Matar Sarr and Alejo Veliz

Ange Postecoglou gave updates on Pape Matar Sarr and Alejo Veliz after losing both players to injury in our 3-1 win against AFC Bournemouth on Sunday.

Pape started brilliantly and opened the scoring on nine minutes at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. However, he was down on the half-hour mark and forced off, visibly upset, replaced by Oliver Skipp. Alejo joined the action off the bench as we defended a 3-0 lead and appeared to take a contact in the box late on. Clearly in pain, he hobbled off towards the end of added time.

Speaking on our Review Show, Ange told us: “Pape felt his hamstring. He’s obviously very disappointed because he’s going away with his national team (with Senegal to the Africa Cup of Nations), and he doesn’t want to miss out on that. We’re hoping it’s nothing too serious that would keep him out for the whole bit.

“Alejo, it’s hard to say. He was in a lot of pain. We’d already made our substitutions. We were asking him to go down so we could take him off, because it was obvious the kid was in a lot of pain. I don’t know the extent of it, obviously it’s disappointing for him as well. We’ll see what the outcome is.

“Sonny leaves today (for the Asia Cup with South Korea) with Biss (Yves Bissouma, to the AFCON with Mali), so, more challenges for us, but nothing we haven’t faced before.”

Good news saw the return from injury of Rodrigo Bentancur, earlier than expected, and he completed 59 minutes. Heung-Min Son and Richarlison joined Pape on the scoresheet.