Roberto De Zerbi has been handed an injury blow during the extended three-week international break and we're only halfway through the domestic football hiatus.
Things are bad enough for the Tottenham Hotspur boss as it is, with the club that he saved from relegation to the Championship on the final day of the 2025/26 now sitting rock bottom of the Premier League table, five games into the 2026/27 campaign.
Spurs will look to return to action after this international break and string a run of results together to move up the table, although they may have to do that without one of their regular starters.
Jan Paul van Hecke was an important signing for De Zerbi - a player that he knew well from his Brighton days and that he knew could play his brand of football without much coaching.
The Dutch defender has scored one of Spurs' only two goals so far this season, late on in the defeat to Aston Villa, and has had a mixed bag of performances, with Tottenham looking shaky at the back early on in the campaign, before putting back-to-back clean sheets together before that capitulation against Villa.
Spurs medical staff to assess van Hecke
Van Hecke has been at the heart of that, alongside countryman Micky van de Ven in the main, but with fellow new boy Marcos Senesi in the first game of the season.
Now, Spurs may have to do without the 26-year-old for a period of time, after he returned to England early following an ankle injury picked up on duty with the Netherlands.
Van Hecke will be assessed by the Tottenham medical staff in the coming days, with De Zerbi hoping that he will be fit for their first match back against Manchester United.
If he is not, however, the Italian head coach will have a decision to make over who plays alongside captain van de Ven in the heart of the Spurs defence.
Who takes van Hecke's place in the starting lineup?
Argentinian Senesi would be the most likely replacement, but he has looked far from composed in his two starts for the club since a free transfer from Bournemouth this summer. He was very shaky against Brentford on the opening day of the season and then endured some difficult moments in the Carabao Cup defeat to Liverpool, although he did grow into the game in the second half.
The more unexpected choice might be to play Tosin Adarabioyo alongside van de Ven. And yet it might be the more sensible decision, based on how the pair have played so far this season.
The former Chelse player showed, in the match against the Reds, that he is not one to back down for a fight, standing up to the Liverpool players on more than one occasion, even when he was not involved in the incident.
He was given a seven out of ten in football.london's player ratings for the game, with Spurs correspondent Alasdair Gold writing: "A solid full debut from the centre-back. None of the goals were really his fault and he did most of what he had to do pretty well."
In contrast to that, Senesi got a five out of ten rating and maybe needs more game time to truly settle into a De Zerbi side. At 6ft 6ins, Adarabioyo would have the physicality to deal with Benjamin Sesko, if he starts for Manchester United, although Senesi's ball-playing skills would be lost.
With Tottenham struggling to score goals, the last thing De Zerbi needs is problems in his back line too, but that may be the case if van Hecke is not fit to start at Old Trafford.