Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has explain why club captain didn't feature at all for the Black Cats 3-1 win over Spurs.
The Albanian international had been pencilled in to be on the bench for Saturday's game but when the match kicked off there was no sign of the captain, having been replaced by youngster Michael Liddle.
Cana has been seeing the club physio's regarding a groin issue, but persisted to train mid week, the problem still remained during the Spurs pre-match warm up.
Steve Bruce was not willing to risk making the problem worse and losing his captain by involving Cana in the game making the last minute decision to drop the midfielder.