Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho does not expect forward Son Heung-min to play again this season after the South Korean fractured his right arm at the weekend, he said on Tuesday.
Son’s injury leaves Spurs short on attacking options for their Champions League last-16 first-leg match against RB Leipzig on Wednesday.
Son, who has 14 goals and eight assists in the league and Champions League this season, is set to undergo surgery with no timeframe given for his return.
Mourinho said a Spurs statement that Son would be out for a “number of weeks” was fairly optimistic.
“I’m not going to count on him again this season,” Mourinho told a news conference. “If he plays two or three games then it’s because he (Spurs’ press officer) is very optimistic, but I’m not counting on him.”
Spurs striker Harry Kane is sidelined until April with a hamstring injury and Mourinho compared the loss of Son to climbing up stairs that break without warning.
“We are holding by our arms on the balcony. Now we have two options, to fall and die... The other is to climb,” the Portuguese said. “We will be on that balcony fighting with everything we have.
“No strikers, no (transfer) market, no players, nothing. The only help now is our crowd, the Tottenham supporters. That’s the only thing I ask because I can’t ask any more from the players that they’re giving, which is everything they have,” he said.
Leipzig ambitious
RB Leipzig’s Hungarian goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi relishing Wednesday’s last 16 match against Tottenham.
Having joined Leipzig when they were still in Germany’s second division, Gulacsi has seen the club grow from Bundesliga new boys and on to a first appearance in the Champions League knock-out stage.
“It’s a new experience to play against an English side. It’s a big opportunity and a big test,” Gulacsi said. “If we have a good day, maybe we could surprise them.”
While Mourinho’s Tottenham sit fifth in the Premier League, Leipzig head to London in the midst of a battle at the top of the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich, with whom they drew 0-0 earlier this month.
“It’s going to be two difficult games, but this is what you look forward to,” Gulacsi said of the Spurs tie. “These are the games we have been fighting to play in.”
The last-16 showdown is the latest step in Leipzig’s rise over the last decade since starting in Germany’s fifth tier in 2009. Gulacsi joined from Red Bull Salzburg in 2015, and the club won promotion to the top tier in his first season.
