Tottenham Hotspur secured their first Premier League victory of 2026 at Molineux, but the result came with a significant worry as Xavi Simons suffered a knee problem on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The visitors managed to keep a beleaguered Wolves side at bay, yet Spurs offered little cutting edge in the final third after Xavi was withdrawn just after the hour mark. Returning Wolves goalkeeper Jos\u00e9 Sa was seldom tested. Tottenham found a way to win through a set-piece and Jo\u00e3o Palhinha\u2019s poacher\u2019s finish at the back post. The narrow triumph was Spurs\u2019 first league success since Dec. 28, but victories for Nottingham Forest and West Ham meant there was no gain on relegation rivals.<\/p>\n
A Premier League win is still a valuable boost for Roberto De Zerbi\u2019s team in the final month of the season. De Zerbi\u2019s side had been denied a win by Brighton & Hove Albion last weekend; a 95th-minute Georginio Rutter equalizer cancelled out Xavi\u2019s stunning effort with 15 minutes to play and, as a consequence, much of the postmatch conversation turned to Xavi\u2019s excessive celebration rather than the quality of the strike.<\/p>\n
Xavi has had a difficult first year in north London but shown signs of promise. The knee problem he suffered on Saturday threatens to be season-ending. He did not take kindly to abuse from the Wolves crowd as he was stretchered from the pitch. In clips that circulated on social media, Xavi bites back at one supporter who shouts from the stands: “F—— w—–, you\u2019re a f—— w—–!” The Dutchman pivoted his head towards the chief offender and more subtly repeats: “F— you!”<\/p>\n
\u201cXavi felt pain, but now I spoke with him two minutes ago, he feels better than at the beginning of the injury,\u201d De Zerbi told reporters postmatch.<\/p>\n
Xavi collapsed awkwardly after a tussle with Hugo Bueno down Wolves\u2019 left flank, writhed in clear discomfort off the pitch and required a stretcher. De Zerbi said the club will not know the severity until Monday or Tuesday, but a season-ending outcome is likely if significant ligament damage is confirmed. Much of Xavi\u2019s productivity this season has arrived in Europe; he has scored just twice in the Premier League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Xavi Simons stretchered off at Molineux with a knee injury that may end his 2025\/26 season and doubt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[969,187],"tags":[1073],"class_list":["post-13061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-acl-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}