Are Spurs on the way out? No way, Jose

ALL is not lost for Tottenham in the Champions League – despite Jose Mourinho’s pessimism about his threadbare options up front and Spurs’ fans very short memories.

It is rotten luck to lose both Harry Kane and Heung-min Son to long-term injuries with Tottenham in contention for the top four, still in the last 16 of the FA Cup and still in the Champions League.

Kane and Son are so instrumental to the way Spurs play, not to mention their two leading scorers.

Amazingly, Mourinho (left) has not won a Champions League knockout tie since Chelsea edged Paris Saintgermain on away goals back in 2014.

One supporter called BBC Radio Five Live’s 606 to claim that Spurs would not have won that game at Aston Villa last Sunday, when Son scored the 94th-minute winner, if Mauricio Pochettino had still been in charge.

I pointed out that Pochettino was the mastermind behind another breathtaking 3-2 win away from home last season – the Champions League semi-final comeback against Ajax (top).

Kane was also injured then but Lucas Moura’s hat-trick got them to the final.

But of course it’s not ideal to be chasing the tie in Leipzig – and we may be about to find out whether Mourinho’s squad has the depth required to sustain Spurs’ season on three fronts.

WHEN a fair-minded manager like Frank Lampard brands VAR “soul destroying”, hopefully somebody is paying attention in English football’s corridors of power.

We can’t go on like this.

I was a fan of VAR when it was introduced in the Premier League last August.

But unless VAR’S application of the offside rule and, especially, the handball law is reviewed as a matter of urgency other fans may vote with their feet.

And when the debate about Harry Maguire’s goal to make it 2-0 to United is not about the quality of set-piece delivery, the marking or the execution of his header, but whether he should have been on the pitch at all, you know VAR is still posing more questions than it is providing answers.