The injury crisis at Tottenham Hotspur is finally starting to ease. Head coach Ange Postecoglou is seeing light at the end of the tunnel and it's no longer another approaching train, as he joked during a press conference recently.
Guglielmo Vicario and James Maddison returned to the starting XI in Sunday's win over Manchester United, while Brennan Johnson and Wilson Odobert both managed minutes off the bench in the same game. Destiny Udogie was an unused substitute, showing Spurs have options now that they have been lacking in recent weeks and months.
Still on the injured list are key players Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero, Dominic Solanke and Richarlison, though, while Radu Dragusin will miss the rest of the season.
Van de Ven is the one most fans would like to see return sooner rather than later, so what is the situation with the centre-back, having returned for a 45-minute spell against Elfsborg at the end of January, only to not be seen since. football.london takes a look at his injury situation.
What is the injury?
As with most of the Spurs players who have been out of action this season, it is a hamstring injury for the Dutchman. The 23-yhear-old has been pretty much out of action since the end of October.
He made a 79-minute return against Chelsea in the Premier League in December - perhaps rushing back too soon as he was then not seen until that Elfsborg clash at the end of January.
Van de Ven has now been missing since then, although it is unclear whether it remains hamstring issues or a thigh problem now.
How many games has he missed?
Van de Ven has missed a total of 24 games across four competitions for Tottenham - a prolonged period for Postecoglou to be without his first choice centre-back.
Spurs have only won nine of those matches, with pressure put on a number of other players to play week in and week out without options on the bench.
What has Postecoglou said?
Postecoglou had to come out and say that Van de Ven had not suffered a setback in his recovery from injury after questions were asked as to why the defender returned against Elfsborg and then has not played again.
Postecoglou said: "With Micky we made a decision, and I was certainly the catalyst of that, to just have a look at exactly beyond the injury how we can get him back in a good spot. He is doing some different things and working with some different people it’s not as much about the injury as about the mechanics of him because we want him back and we want him back in a real good space.
"He is training and feels really good. We are still confident his return is imminent but we want to make sure we get it right.
"You know, he is still a very young man in terms of footballing experience, and his career. What you want is Micky to play 10 years at the best possible level, this gives us the opportunity to address what we can while in the middle of the season to get him to the best possible level he can get to."
When will he be back?
Speaking during his pre-match press conference ahead of the win over Manchester United, Postecoglou said that Van de Ven, alongside Cristian Romero and Richarlison, were about "two or three weeks away".
Van de Ven and the other duo have been back in first team training with the squad and are almost ready to return to action. With no game on March 1 due to being knocked out of the FA Cup, the clash with Bournemouth on Sunday, March 9 could be the perfect time to welcome Van de Ven back into the team.
If Spurs wanted to be really cautious, there is an international break after that game and he could be rested until after that. But if he is fit, it could lead to a call-up for the Netherlands and that could be disastrous.