Mauricio Pochettino 'concerned' about fitness of Tottenham duo Victor Wanyama and Mousa Dembele

He also revealed that Danny Rose was no quite ready to start

Wanyama has been out since August while Dembele was injured on Monday (Getty)

Mauricio Pochettino says that Tottenham Hotspur are “concerned” about the fitness problems of Victor Wanyama and Mousa Dembele, and admitted it is still unknown when they will return.

Wanyama has to see a specialist over a knee injury that has kept him out since the 2-1 defeat to Chelsea on 20 August, while Dembele on Monday suffered a set-back in his recovery from a hip injury that has plagued him.

“We are concerned about his situation,” Pochettino first said of Wanyama. “We must wait for when he sees the specialist and then we’ll see what happens. But of course after some time without him involved in the training sessions and with the team, we are concerned. But now we need to wait next week to have a more clear idea of what’s going on.”

As regards Dembele, Pochettino said it was “so difficult to explain”, and he had to get his assistant Jesus Perez to give the details in this Friday press conference.

“He had an incident in one of the training sessions, and complained about one of his hips and he’s not able to cope with the intensity of the training,” Perez said. “It’s as simple as that. It’s been three or four days since the incident and he can’t cope with the intensity of the training.”

Pochettino meanwhile said Danny Rose isn’t quite yet ready to start despite making his return from injury as a sub in the midweek 1-1 draw away to Real Madrid, but that Erik Lamela could finally be ready to make a comeback in the midweek League Cup game against West Ham United, exactly a year after he last played due to a hip injury.

“Erik, we are talking every day. He needs to find that feeling where he can say ‘now yes, I am available again to compete’. It was a similar situation with Danny and I hope maybe he can be on the bench against West Ham, but it’s not sure.

“It’s about waiting but he’s been doing very well in the last few weeks, with the team in training. We only need to wait for that click where he feels ‘yes, I feel I can cope with the competition’.”