Soccer:Tottenham forward Rafael van der Vaart claims he was not consulted about being left out of the club's Europa League squad. The Dutchman hobbled off during Spurs' 5-1 defeat to Manchester City over two weeks ago amid fears he had torn the hamstring in his left leg.

Tottenham later confirmed the injury and said they expected the Dutchman to be out for six weeks.

Because of this, and his decision to give priority to Spurs' domestic campaign, manager Harry Redknapp decided to omit the 28-year-old from his squad for the Europa League group stages.

However, after seeing specialist Dick van Toorn in his homeland, Van der Vaart is confident that he will be back in action much sooner than expected, and could possibly even play in this Sunday's Barclays Premier League match against Liverpool at White Hart Lane.

In a section headlined "annoying" on his personal website, Van der Vaart wrote: "I still think it's a peculiar situation.

"Spurs could at least have consulted me. Anyway it's up to the point of no return. I will be focusing on the game against Liverpool.

"I'm pretty convinced I will be fit by then thanks to Dick van Toorn."

Spurs kick off their Europa League campaign against PAOK Salonika in Greece on Thursday. If they get through the group stages, they will be allowed to add three new names to their squad.

Redknapp has said that he intends to blood a number of youngsters such as Harry Kane, Tom Carroll and Jake Livermore to help his team's push for a Champions League spot from the Premier League.

Redknapp's team, who won their first points of the season with a 2-0 win at Wolves on Saturday, are facing a mounting injury crisis.

Michael Dawson is the latest to suffer an injury. The England defender picked up an Achilles problem last week and could be out for some time.