Hoddle moves to calm fears over Keane’s knee injury

SPURS boss Glenn Hoddle has denied that star striker Robbie Keane is out injured for six weeks.

The Republic of Ireland ace will miss Monday’s home Premiership fixture with Fulham and the trip to West Ham the following Saturday, but Hoddle is so upset by “wide-of-the-mark” speculation over his joint top scorer’s knee ligament injury.

Hoddle moved to calm fears among Spurs fans as a long absence for Keane could be a major blow to the club’s hopes of qualifying for the UEFA Cup.

“It’s difficult to put an accurate time estimate on this kind of injury but six weeks is way wide of the mark,” insisted Hoddle.

Keane, who has scored nine goals in 23 starts for Spurs, injured his knee in the 4-1 win over Sunderland two weeks ago and had to be substituted after 21 minutes. He also missed Ireland’s clash with Scotland.

Hoddle added: “Unfortunately, Robbie will miss Monday’s home game against Fulham and West Ham away next weekend but after that we hope to have him back and Robbie doesn’t need an operation.”

With striker Steffen Iversen also likely to be out for two weeks with a back problem and Les Ferdinand and Sergei Rebrov offloaded to West Ham and Galatasaray respectively, Tottenham’s latest striker crisis is likely to be solved by Keane’s Republic of Ireland squad-mate Gary Doherty.

Rated more highly as a defender, Doherty still managed to scored his first goal of the season after replacing Keane in the Sunderland match.