Alex Pritchard will reportedly return to first-team training with Tottenham Hotspur next week.
The 22-year-old has been out since last August after surgery on his right ankle, but could be back in contention for Spurs’s Premier League visit of Sunderland on January 16, Sky Sports reports.
Pritchard starred during a loan spell at Brentford in 2014-15, scoring 12 goals and supplying seven assists to help the Bees reach the playoffs in their first season in the Championship.
The young playmaker was integrated into Mauricio Pochettino’s first-team squad over the summer alongside former academy graduates such as Harry Kane, Ryan Mason and Nabil Bentaleb.
But he then suffered a reoccurrence of the ankle injury which cut short his Euro 2015 campaign with England’s U21s, and he has not played since a cameo against Everton at the start of the season.
January has long been pinpointed as his possible return date, and Sky Sports report that Norwich City and Swansea City were both looking to take Pritchard on loan for the rest of the campaign.
But Sky Sports adds that Pochettino wants to keep Pritchard at White Hart Lane and has plans to use him in the first team. Spurs are still in the Europa League, FA Cup and Premier League title race.
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