Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou is hopeful of having both Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven back for the first leg of the Europa League last-16 contest against AZ Alkmaar in early March.
Romero has been on the sidelines since pulling up with a thigh problem against Chelsea on December 8, and the Argentina international had another scan on the injury earlier this week.
Postecoglou has provided a positive update on the centre-back's fitness, revealing that the 26-year-old is "in a good place", with his return potentially coming against AZ in the Netherlands on March 6.
Van de Ven, meanwhile, has not featured since the Europa League clash with Elfsborg at the end of January, with that match marking his return after spending a period out with a hamstring issue.
However, the Netherlands international is in the latter stages of his recovery, and the first-choice centre-backs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will seemingly soon be back on the field.
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Romero, Van de Ven set to return for Tottenham in early March
Postecoglou confirmed during his press conference on Friday that Romero had a scan on his thigh, while the Spurs head coach also revealed that he had "no new concerns" ahead of Saturday's Premier League clash with Ipswich Town.
"He's had that and it's going well. He's in a good place. So, like I said, with him and Micky, it's just picking our moment now. I'm really keen to get them back and have him back for the rest of the year," Postecoglou told reporters.
"We've got a really good period coming up where I think we can manage that where they're back, they've had good weeks of training with us, so that when they do come back in, they're in a good place. So, yeah, he's still going well.
"No new concerns. From last week, everyone got through okay. The three guys who picked up a knock last week were all good. Obviously, again, having a full week to recover and prepare is good, and the other guys are ticking along well.
"We've got now two games in quick succession in the league, a good opportunity for us to get some match minutes into guys who have been out for a while. We saw Brennan [Johnson] and Wilson [Odobert], obviously, Vic (Guglielmo Vicario) comes back last week, Madders (James Maddison), but Destiny [Udogie] as well.
"We need to get them some match minutes and these two games will give us an opportunity to do that. Then we've got a week before the first Europa game. We've got the weekend off. And again, that's about the time we're hoping that guys like Romero and Micky in particular they should be in and around that sort of mark.
"And Richie (Richarlison) and Dom (Dominic Solanke) not too far behind, to be honest. And again, with that, we've got sort of two games before the international break. So we're kind of mapping it out and trying to sort of navigate a way where we can have f as fit and healthy squad as we have all year for the run-in."
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Which players will Tottenham be missing against Ipswich?
Radu Dragusin, Solanke, Van de Ven, Richarlison and Romero will again be missing against Ipswich on Saturday, but Timo Werner has a chance of being back in the squad after recovering from a thigh problem.
Son Heung-min, Kevin Danso and Rodrigo Bentancur all picked up knocks in the 1-0 victory over Manchester United last weekend, but the trio are available for selection at Portman Road this weekend.
Matt Law
