Ange Postecoglou revealed Cristian Romero “felt his quad” in Tottenham’s 4-3 defeat to Chelsea on Sunday, but believes Micky van de Ven and Brennan Johnson have not suffered fresh injuries after being forced off in the second half.
Romero and van de Ven both returned to the XI after spells on the sidelines but the former’s afternoon lasted just 14 minutes and he left the field in visible distress.
His injury forced Postecoglou to play Van de Ven for longer than planned, and the Dutchman went down with ten minutes to play, seemingly with cramp.
Johnson was also replaced early in the second half, with Postecoglou revealing the winger had not felt well since the interval.
“Romero is just obviously hugely disappointing,” Postecoglou said afterwards. “He felt something in his quad. He trained really well. He wasn't the one I was worried about, to be honest, but it's just the way the season's going for us unfortunately.
“So we just have to wait and see.
“Brennan just didn't feel well. He didn't feel well at half-time, but he wanted to give it a go, but he just wasn't feeling 100 per cent, so I had to take him off.
“And then, well, the plan was always for Micky to play 60, 70 [minutes] today. Obviously, I thought Romero would be okay to play 90, but Mickey, probably 60,70.
“So we were always going take him off. He didn't feel anything significant. He just felt tightness, but we were always going to take him off anyway.”
Asked if he had taken a risk in starting Romero and Van de Ven, Postecoglou said: “No, Romero didn't injure the same thing.
“It's a totally different injury, but also people I'm sure are aware of our situation. It's not like I've got a multitude of options there, so, you know, you've got to make these decisions. Both players trained and tried well, and they both wanted to help.
“So you make these decisions with all the best information. Like I said, it's not like Romero re-injured his toe, it's a totally different injury, which could happen at any time.”
Spurs raced into a two-goal lead inside 11 minutes through goals by Dominic Solanke and Dejan Kulusevski – both following costly slips by Marc Cucurella, who subsequently changed his boots.
Jadon Sancho halved the deficit, and Cole Palmer levelled the scores from the penalty spot after Yves Bissouma brought down Moises Caicedo.
Enzo Fernandez put Chelsea in front with a first-time finish and Palmer’s second penalty – a brilliant Panenka – gave Chelsea daylight.
Heung-min Son scored a consolation goal in stoppage-time but Spurs could not salvage a point.
“We were really in control of the game and had some really good opportunities apart from the two goals,” Postecoglou said. “Then you lose Cristian after the second goal which is just the way our season has gone.
“Nothing has run smoothly and they capitalised before we had settled back down to score. I still felt that in the first half we had the better moments to get a third goal, a couple of key ones.
“In the second half they came out and put us under pressure. I felt we were handling it not too badly and then when they scored we had a big moment at 2-2 to go 3-2 up and in these kind of games, those moments are important.
“We don't take it and then both penalties were poor on our behalf. They're self-inflicted and unnecessary challenges. We've given them two goals away for no reason and given ourselves a mountain to climb which proved too hard.”
