Mohammed Kudus has suffered a new hamstring problem during an individual training session at Hotspur Way with scans conducted on Tuesday confirming the setback.
And Tottenham now bracing for a further absence of approximately three months that would end his season and cast serious doubt over his place in Ghana’s World Cup squad.
The development is a devastating blow for the 25-year-old, who had spent close to 100 days working his way back from the original hamstring injury sustained in January.
Surgery is now expected to resolve the new problem, a decision that effectively rules out any meaningful contribution to Tottenham’s survival fight and puts his dream of featuring at the World Cup in North America this summer in genuine jeopardy. Ghana face England, Panama and Croatia in Group L, opening against Panama on June 17.
A three-month recovery from surgery would leave him racing against that timeline at best.
The Mohammed Kudus injury story
The care taken over Kudus’ rehabilitation made the fresh setback all the more cruel. After the initial injury, Tottenham and the player deliberately avoided the surgical route, choosing instead a conservative rehabilitation programme.
To assist his recovery, Kudus travelled to Amsterdam to consult a specialist with connections to his former club Ajax, and the programme had been carefully structured around the World Cup calendar. Every decision was shaped by the desire to have him fit and sharp in time for Ghana’s campaign.
For weeks that plan appeared to be working. He returned to first-team training at Hotspur Way earlier this week and was pictured working with the group ahead of the trip to Sunderland, raising hopes that he would be named in the squad.
Then, during an individual session on Monday, he felt something in the hamstring. Scans confirmed the worst the following day.
What Tottenham lose without Kudus in the run-in
The timing is almost impossible to overstate for a club fighting relegation with seven games remaining. Kudus has been one of Spurs’ most dangerous attackers all season despite missing more than three months.
He created the third most chances of any Tottenham player in the league with 23, has the joint highest successful dribble rate per 90 minutes at 3.0, and has completed more dribbles than any other player in the squad, all having been absent since the start of January. His availability would have given Roberto De Zerbi’s already limited squad an entirely different dimension going into the final stretch.
Instead, Tottenham face their survival battle without him.
Kudus joins James Maddison and Wilson Odobert as players whose seasons are effectively over, and for the Ghanaian, the cost extends far beyond this club campaign.
He will now spend the summer hoping the surgery goes smoothly, the recovery accelerates, and that Ghana can find a path through one of the tournament’s tougher groups without their most dynamic attacking threat.
