His leg firmly encased in a protective brace, Harry Kane watched Tottenham's 1-0 defeat to Liverpool from the comfort of his sofa on Saturday night.
Facing the runaway Premier League leaders without their main striker wasn't, in the end, a complete disaster for Jose Mourinho's side.
They weren't exactly favourites to win in any case and did carry a fair attacking threat, passing up a series of good openings in the second-half after Roberto Firmino's goal.
But we'll never know whether Kane, who'd scored 17 goals this season before his ruptured hamstring injury, would have put those chances away.
His absence for the next three months is undoubtedly an enormous body blow to Spurs as they try and keep pace with the top four and attempt to make progress in the FA Cup and Champions League.
There is clear evidence from Kane's previous spells on the sidelines that Spurs' effectiveness in front of goal - and therefore their chances of winning - do decline.
Since the 2014-15 season when Kane made his breakthrough into the Spurs first team, they have been without their striker for just 25 Premier League matches, as opposed to having him involved in 187.
But in those 25 games, according to Opta stats, Spurs see their win percentage drop from 57.2 per cent with Kane involved to 44 per cent without him.
The average number of goals scored drops from 1.9 to 1.24 and the average number of points picked up per game falls from 1.9 to 1.56.
They're not stats that augur too well for Mourinho and Spurs as they prepare to fight on three fronts without their talismanic striker until at least April.
The slack will have to be picked up by Lucas Moura, Heung-min Son, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen in the absence of 17-goal Kane. By comparison, Son has 10 goals this season, Alli seven, Moura six and Eriksen three.
The positive side is that Spurs have developed coping strategies for the times when Kane has been absent for a substantial amount of time in previous seasons.
Take the 2016-17 season, when Kane missed five Premier League games in September and October then three league games in March and April both with ankle problems.
They won five and drew three of those eight matches, but the average goals dropped from 2.4 to 1.6 in Kane's absence and the win percentage fell off from 70 to 62.5.
Who knows, had Kane been available for the games against West Brom, Bournemouth and Leicester in October - all drawn - perhaps Spurs might have pushed Chelsea close for the title having ultimately finished seven points adrift.
Last season, Kane was absent for 10 Premier League matches and three Champions League games with ankle ligament trouble towards the end of the season.
Spurs won six of those 10 league games, drew one and lost three, with their goal ratio dropping from 1.9 to 1.5.
However, they did manage to overcome Manchester City and Ajax to reach the Champions League final in Kane's absence, with the England striker rushing back to make the 2-0 loss to Liverpool in Madrid.
So while Spurs are undoubtedly under-powered in Kane's absence, it is far from an unprecedented scenario and Mourinho will have to find an effective coping strategy for his absence as Mauricio Pochettino did before him.