The boost from Rodrigo Bentancur's surprise return to the Tottenham XI on New Year's Eve — some six weeks ahead of schedule — was offset in just half an hour, when Pape Sarr was the next of Ange Postecoglou's players to suffer an injury.
As Postecoglou acknowledged after the 3-1 win against Bournemouth, this is "the way our season has gone"; one in, one out. As soon as Spurs get a player back from injury or suspension, they almost immediately lose someone else.
Sarr, who had opened the scoring, was forced off with a hamstring problem and looked devastated, although the 21-year-old has been passed fit to make Senegal's squad for this month's Africa Cup of Nations.
By the end of Sunday's win, which moved Spurs to within a point of fourth-placed Arsenal, substitute Alejo Veliz was also in tears after suffering an injury — cruel timing for the young Argentine ahead of what might have been his first Spurs start against Burnley in the FA Cup on Friday — and he left the stadium on crutches and with a brace on his right leg.
While most Spurs fans were cursing their luck again, Postecoglou will have a more logical take on his squad's unrelenting injuries.
Since the start of the season, Micky van de Ven, James Maddison, Manor Solomon, Ivan Perisic, Cristian Romero, Richarlison, Brennan Johnson, Giovani Lo Celso, Ashley Phillips and Bentancur have all spent a month or more on the sidelines, while Sarr, Destiny Udogie and Eric Dier are among the players to have suffered shorter-term muscle strains.
Bad luck has obviously played a part, while injury pile-ups tend to feed on themselves and get progressively worse; when several players are sidelined at once, the strain on the remaining players makes further injuries more likely.
Postecoglou, though, knows that injuries are also an inevitable consequence of the transformation in playing style he is overseeing at the club.
At a similar stage of Postecoglou's revolution at Celtic, six players were sidelined with hamstring injuries alone
The Australian demands his teams train and play at high intensity, never letting up, and muscle injuries, in particular, are therefore frustrating but understandable while his players adapt to the physical strain of playing 'Ange-ball'.
Van de Ven's injury looked like a direct result of Postecoglou's approach, with the Dutchman's hamstring popping against Chelsea as he raced back to cover the space behind Spurs's high defensive line once again.
By mid-December 2021, at a similar stage of Postecoglou's revolution at Celtic, no fewer than six of his players were sidelined with hamstring injuries alone.
"It's not new to me," Postecoglou said at the time. "We play differently and train differently, and it takes players time to adjust to that, and along the way we obviously pay a price."
It was the same story in Postecoglou's first season at Yokohama F Marinos, though in both Japan and Scotland his injury problems eased in his second year, when his squads were stronger and his players more used to the physical demands of his high-octane brand of football.
As Spurs's players adapt to Postecoglou's approach, there should, in theory, be fewer muscle injuries, although he has said the squad is "nowhere near" strong enough and clearly they need more depth to ensure key players can be rotated.
At Yokohama, Postecoglou's injury problems returned with a vengeance in his third season, as the club struggled with the demands of playing in the Asian Champions League and a congested J-League calendar, underlining that there will always be consequences for his style of play without sufficient squad depth — a warning for Spurs if, as looks likely, they return to Europe next season.
Postecoglou is confident of having Maddison and Van de Ven available this month, as well as Bentancur, which would obviously be welcome but, true to form, Spurs are losing as many key players, with Yves Bissouma joining Sarr at AFCON and skipper Heung-min Son competing in the Asian Cup for South Korea.
