Ange Postecoglou: Micky van de Ven’s hamstring injury not too serious

Tottenham will be without Micky van de Ven for Sunday’s visit of Aston Villa but Ange Postecoglou has revealed his hamstring injury is not serious.

Van de Ven was forced off in the 14th minute of Wednesday’s 2-1 victory over Manchester City in the Carabao Cup.

The Dutch defender was emotional as he left the pitch but should return after this month’s international break.

“He was disappointed obviously and he was looking forward to the (Man City) game so a bit emotional, but it’s definitely not a bad one like last time which kept him out for a while.”

When Van de Ven walked off in midweek it was reminiscent of when he injured his hamstring last year against Chelsea, which sidelined him for two months, but he will now target the league fixture at Manchester City on November 23.

Cristian Romero and Timo Werner were also brought off during the cup victory and will be assessed before Sunday’s Premier League match at home to Villa.

Spurs captain Son Heung-min missed the match after a setback with a recent hamstring injury but returned to training on Friday.

“Son has trained today. If he gets through training tomorrow, he should be OK.”

Wilson Odobert is a different story after Postecoglou confirmed his setback from a previous hamstring is “significant”.

The former Burnley attacker missed a month of football after he was injured during the 2-1 win at Coventry on September 18 before he returned with a late cameo against AZ Alkmaar last month.

Odobert picked up a further hamstring injury in that match and is set for at least a month out.

“It’s significant, so he’ll be out,” Postecoglou said. “Again, because it’s a reoccurrence, we’ll have to be a bit conservative.

Tottenham’s 2-1 victory over Man City helped them respond to a below-par display in defeat at Crystal Palace last week and make it eight wins in 10 matches in all competitions.

Only three of those victories have been in the Premier League and Postecoglou knows his eighth-placed team must find greater consistency.

He said: “In the league we have had some disappointing results but really only one disappointing performance and that was the Palace game. It wasn’t a great performance and we got what we deserved.

“We continue to evolve, learn from that and when we have had disappointments, we bounce back straight away, which I think is important.

“It is part of the evolution of the team. It is not going to be a smooth ride but within that we don’t want there to be too many times when we are not playing the football we want to.

“I have said it to the players, if you want to grow a beautiful garden you have to handle some fertilizer. That is the only way it will happen.”