Dejan Kulusevski's Return: Tottenham's Hope for Recovery
Tottenham’s long wait for Dejan Kulusevski is almost over. Nineteen months after a shattered right patella stopped his career in its tracks, the Sweden international is finally back in full training – and with him returns a sense of possibility for a team still searching for its first league win of the season.
Kulusevski’s 19-month fight back
For Spurs supporters, the timeline has been brutal. Kulusevski limped out at the end of the 2024/25 campaign and then vanished from competitive football. The injury cost him a World Cup summer and an entire year of his prime. A player who had become the heartbeat of Tottenham’s attack was suddenly reduced to a rehab schedule and gym sessions.
The road back has not been smooth. An initial attempt to step up his workload in August brought a minor setback and another pause. Now, at 26, he has finally cleared the last hurdle: full training with the senior squad, no restrictions. Inside the club, that shift has landed like a jolt of electricity.
Saturday’s clash with Aston Villa will still come too early for a place in the matchday squad. Tottenham’s technical staff are instead working towards a competitive return in October or November, determined not to gamble with a player they view as central to the project.
Roberto De Zerbi made it clear he will not rush him. The Spurs head coach spoke of a joint plan between coaches, medical staff and fitness team to “manage Deki in the best way we can,” stressing both the quality of the player and the character he has shown during the long lay-off. The message was simple: he deserves this second act.
Before the injury, Kulusevski had been the standout performer in a chaotic 2024/25 season. While the club lurched through turbulence, he delivered. Creativity, work rate, end product – he carried much of the attacking burden. Losing him for the entire following year stripped Spurs of their most reliable outlet in the final third. His return changes the mood, and potentially the ceiling, of this squad.
Maddison edging back, creativity returning
Kulusevski is not the only creative force trying to piece a career back together. James Maddison has spent the past year living with the stop-start rhythm that terrifies any playmaker.
An ACL tear last August forced him into a race against time just to feature at the back end of last season. He made it, helped Spurs drag themselves away from the relegation trapdoor, and then ran straight into more problems. This time it was the shoulder, a nagging issue that has stalked him into the current campaign.
De Zerbi, though, knows what he has when Maddison is fit. He described the 29-year-old as a rare profile in this squad, a player whose technical quality and vision shift the whole geometry of a match. Maddison has now been training with the group for around 10 to 15 days, the manager confirmed, but the emphasis remains on conditioning. Even a technical player, De Zerbi pointed out, needs to be fully fit to influence games at Premier League speed.
The difference is that Maddison, unlike Kulusevski, is in contention for Aston Villa. So too are Pedro Porro and Sandro Tonali, both of whom missed the midweek cup defeat to Liverpool. Their availability suddenly thickens a squad that has looked thin, tired and short of ideas in recent weeks.
Pressure building, options finally returning
Tottenham’s situation in the league is stark. Four games, no wins, no goals. A new regime already under scrutiny, a fanbase restless, and a table that makes grim reading this early in the season.
De Zerbi has refused to flinch. He has insisted that performances will turn into points if his players hold their nerve and stick to the plan. That conviction is easier to sell when you can glance at the training pitch and see Kulusevski sprinting again, Maddison threading passes again, Tonali and Porro back in the mix.
For now, the Swede’s comeback remains a near-future promise rather than a present solution. Maddison, Tonali and Porro may have to carry the creative load against Villa while he waits. But the psychological impact of seeing one of the club’s most influential figures back in full training is undeniable.
Tottenham have stumbled through the opening month of the season with blunt edges and frayed belief. The question now is simple: as their best technicians return, does this team finally start to look like the one De Zerbi imagined when he took the job?
