Story · Tottenham Hotspur
Roberto De Zerbi explains Mateus Fernandes' absence from pre-season match as precaution
Tottenham Hotspur head coach Roberto De Zerbi has clarified that midfielder Mateus Fernandes was absent from the pre-season friendly against Sydney FC due to calf fatigue, not a serious injury. Fernandes, a £85 million summer signing from West Ham United, was held out as a precaution after an intensive training schedule. De Zerbi confirmed in a post-match press conference that the 22-year-old Portuguese playmaker will rejoin full training when the squad returns to London on Wednesday, ensuring he is on track for the Premier League opener against Brentford on August 22. The decision reflects De Zerbi's strategy of prioritizing player conditioning and injury prevention during the pre-season tour of Australia and New Zealand.
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