Tottenham midfielder Yves Bissouma was stretchered off with a painful looking injury just moments into his first game of the season on Sunday night.
The 29-year-old missed the start to Spurs’ season with a knee injury but had got himself back into a position of fitness where he could be called up by Mali during this international break, joining up for their second World Cup qualifying game of the fortnight against Madagascar.
Bissouma entered the fray at the Stade Modibo Keita in the 66th minute with the score 3-0 in what would eventually be a 4-1 victory for Mali. He intercepted a loose pass from a Madagascar corner only to be challenged by an opposition player as he tried to dribble away with the ball which left him in a crumpled heap on the pitch.
The Tottenham midfielder was clearly in a lot of pain and in distress holding his left ankle and pounding the turf repeatedly with his other hand as the medical staff came on. Bissouma pulled his shirt up over his head as his team-mates attempted to console him. He was unable to walk off the pitch on his own and required a stretcher to take him off.
Bissouma’s knee injury had scuppered the chances of a move away from N17 this summer. The former Brighton man’s contract at the north London club is now approaching its final nine months and Spurs were looking to let him leave, with a transfer to Turkey and other Premier League sides mooted.
However, nothing was forthcoming for the midfielder, who was left out of the UEFA Super Cup squad at the start of the season by his new head coach Thomas Frank due to repeated lateness and then his Champions League squad for the league phase of the competition.
Last month after the window closed, the Spurs boss said: “There are no hard feelings at all. Not before, not now, not at all. Train well and everyone has an opportunity.
“He has just started to run outside, so he is not part of the group but everything I’ve seen when I’ve said hello to him and every day with the players, he seems good.”
Now Bissouma looks to have another injury to deal with. If it is an ankle injury as it potentially appeared from the footage, then the Mali international has previous with such a problem, having missed a chunk of his first season at the club with a stress fracture in his left ankle in February 2023 which required surgery.
