Jose expects Son to miss rest of the season
Tottenham head coach Jose Mourinho does not expect Son Heung-min to play again this season.
The South Korea international has undergone surgery on a broken arm suffered in Sunday's 3-2 win against Aston Villa, where he scored two goals with the injury.
The club have said that he will be out for a "number of weeks" but Mourinho is much more pessimistic.
ItisamassiveblowtoSpurs, who could be without Harry Kane for the rest of the season, given the fact Son has scored six goals in the last five games.
Mourinho described the news as heartbreaking and says that he must now "play without a striker".
"I'm don't count on him again this season," he said ahead of Spurs' Champions League tie with RB Leipzig.
"If he plays two or three games then it's because he (the press officer) is very optimistic,butI'mnotcountingon him. Yeah, bad news. For how long we are going to miss him, Simon (Felstein, press officer) saidaverynicewaytowritethe statement.
"If I was the one to write the statementIwouldwritedifferent than he did. So you can understandwhatImean.Wemiss him. According to Simon for a number of weeks. Yesterday the bad news - the first thing was to break our hearts and the second thing was to break ourteam.Butwehavetorecover from broken hearts and we have to fight with the team we have."
The timing could not be worse for Spurs given they are entering a possible season-definingperiod,withthetwo-leggedChampionsLeaguetiewith theBundesligasideandgames againsttop-fourrivalsChelsea, Wolves and Manchester United in the next four weeks.
Mourinho has no out-andoutstrikertocallon,havingdeclared academy prospect Troy Parrottnotready,meaningoptions are limited to playing Lucas Moura, Dele Alli or Steven Bergwijn.
"The situation couldn't be worse in terms of options," Mourinho said. "I think that's averyobvioussituation.There is nothing that you can do.
"You are going to play with the players we have available. The players are going to give absolutely everything which iswhattheyaredoing.Insome periods I was worried about not having attacking options on the bench.”