Tottenham: Dejan Kulusevski ruled out of Eintracht Frankfurt first leg with latest injury update | OneFootball

Swedish star in a race to be fit for the Europa League quarter-final second leg

Your matchday briefing on Tottenham, featuring team news and expert analysis from Dan Kilpatrick

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Tottenham have been dealt a blow after Ange Postecoglou confirmed Dejan Kulusevski will not return from his foot injury in time for the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final with against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Spurs fans had hoped Kulusevski might be back after the international break, with a trip to Chelsea on Thursday followed by a home game against Southampton on Sunday.

But Kulusevski has been ruled out of the first leg against Frankfurt next Thursday.

Spurs play the second leg against Frankfurt in Germany on April 17 and Postecoglou hopes he will be fit to return by then.

Kevin Danso has also been ruled out of the first leg due to the hamstring injury he suffered against Bournemouth a month ago.

Postecoglou said: “Kevin and Deki are working hard still, they’re probably a couple of weeks away, but both are progressing well.”

Lucas Bergvall was struggling with an illness

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In better news for Spurs, Postecoglou has confirmed Lucas Bergvall is fit to face Chelsea on Thursday after a bout of illness that forced him to miss both Sweden games over the international break.

“Lucas is fine,” Postecoglou continued. “He had a bit of an illness, picked up a bug, but he got back at the weekend and got straight back into training."

Postecoglou added: “It was a good international break for us.

“Firstly, obviously no-one picked up anything, which is important, but also some guys got some game time which we felt was going to be important, guys like (Cristian) Romero, Destiny (Udogie), Matty Tel, Wilson (Odobert) and all these guys who missed a lot of football recently all got some good game time.

“The ones who played all did relatively well, they're all back and we’ve had a strong training group in the last couple of days.”

Postecoglou has also confirmed Richarlison is closing in on a return after two months out.

“Richy’s training with the group, again, it's about when we reintroduce him to the matchday squad, but he's training with the main training group, which is positive,” said Postecoglou.