Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou revealed another injury setback on Wednesday, confirming Cristian Romero will miss the next four to five weeks due to a hamstring strain.
Spurs' absence of the 25-year-old Argentina centre-back is all the more galling given that Romero only recently returned from a three-match suspension.
Romero suffered the injury in last weekend's 2-1 win over Everton, with Postecoglou commenting ahead of Thursday's match at Brighton: "Not so good with Romero."
"He had a scan the other day and has a hamstring strain. We are looking at probably four or five weeks for him.
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"Disappointing to lose him, for sure. We missed him with the suspension and now we've just got him back and he steadied things up.
"Now he will be missing again for quite a chunk of time."
Micky van de Ven, Romero's teammate in central defense, is still out with a hamstring injury suffered in a 4-1 loss to Chelsea in November.
Van de Ven hinted last week that he could be back in training in a fortnight, with Postecoglou hinting that the player could return on January 14 against Manchester United.
"He is getting closer," Postecoglou said. "We will see him some time in January. I don't think Burnley but Man United on the 14th potentially
"I don't look at comeback dates until I see them training with us and he hasn't been part of the group.
"He is not due to be part of the group this week so we'll see how he is going at the end of this week. Once they start training with the group, we start thinking about whether they are available.
"He is at the tail end of it, for sure and at some point, middle of January he could be available but how we use him after such a long absence will be depending on where he is at."
With a win at Brighton, Tottenham Hotspur could leapfrog Aston Villa into third place in the Premier League.
