Why 23-year-old Tottenham Hotspur defender was absent vs Eintracht Frankfurt | OneFootball

Japhet Tanganga absent for Tottenham Hotspur vs Frankfurt due to injury

Tottenham Hotspur named 12 substitutes on the bench in the UEFA Champions League game against Eintracht Frankfurt but Japhet Tanganga wasn’t one of them.

That raised suspicions if the defender was suffering from an injury – and it is an explanation now confirmed by Football.London. Returning to the matchday squad was Ben Davies, after being sidelined for a few weeks with an injury issue of his own.

As it turned out, the game was a rather drab affair, finishing 0-0. It’s not really the worst result for us considering it was an away game in Germany against the UEFA Europa League champions.

Japhet Tanganga in action for Tottenham Hotspur against Vitesse. (Photo by Martin Rose/Getty Images)

As for Tanganga, it remains to be seen when he will be fit again. It seems that injury issues are just pestering manager Antonio Conte at a time when he can really do without them.

Lucas Moura and Dejan Kulusevski similarly missed the clash against Die Adler with injury problems of their own. The Brazil international, in particular, has not featured in a single game for us since gameweek 2 in the Premier League.

As for Tanganga, perhaps he may not have started even if he was fit. That has been the case with him all season – in fact, the 23-year-old centre-back has just played 17 minutes of football so far in this campaign.

Eric Dier, Clement Lenglet, and Cristian Romero started the game and kept an important clean sheet for us at the back. However, with seven more games left for us in October, we would perhaps need the services of Tanganga sooner rather than later.

More Tottenham News:

Next up is a tricky away trip the Amex on Saturday against Brighton and Hove Albion. It won’t be an easy outing by any means and perhaps will demand Conte to field his best possible XI once again.