This sucks, y’all. Tottenham Hotspur are already without a majority of their best players, including Cuti Romero, James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski, Dominic Solanke, and Mohammed Kudus. Now add Xavi Simons to that list. Simons suffered what looked like a significant injury to his knee that resulted in his substitution in Spurs’ win over Wolves on Saturday. He tried to run off the injury but ended up being stretchered off.
While we still don’t know the extent of the injury, we now know it’s severe. Simons posted on Instagram that he will not only miss the rest of the season, but he will also miss the World Cup for Netherlands as well.
God. This just SUCKS. I’ve said this before, but put aside all of the stuff that has led to Tottenham Hotspur being in the position they are — 18th place with 4 matches to play, and with a very, very real chance of relegation. Yes, there’s lots of compounding reasons why Spurs are here, including poor squad management, bad managers, and terrible recruitment, but one underrated factor that doesn’t get talked about enough is the sheer, incredible amount of bad luck Spurs have had for going on two years straight. It feels like, as Ange once said, every light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be an oncoming train.
If you’re keeping score, that’s three Spurs ACL injuries in a single season: James Maddison, Wilson Odobert, and Xavi. Four, if you include Dejan Kulusevsi, who still hasn’t returned from his injured patella. God. What other club has gone through anything even remotely close to this?
So Spurs will now need to find a way to escape the drop at West Ham’s expense without their best creative player and passer. I feel bad for Tottenham, but I feel even worse for Xavi. In one stroke his season hopes and his World Cup hopes are dashed. He doesn’t deserve this, but injuries happen. They just seem to happen more often to Tottenham players than to pretty much any other club.