NORMAN GILLER'S SPURS ODYSSEY BLOG No 538
Submitted by Norman Giller

The last two Tottenham performances - against Brentford and Sunderland - left me considering suing Spurs for putting years on me. I could call every Lilywhite fan who observed the matches as witnesses for the prosecution.

Of course, I am joking ... but watching those two games was no laughing matter. I could find nothing in either dismal display to fill me with confidence about the future. Sorry to be so depressing at the start of this New Year, but I am finding it hard to drum up the positivity that usually peppers my Spurs Odyssey observations.

I can detect little solace in a fixture list that offers a visit to Bournemouth on Wednesday and then what is suddenly an Everest of a third-round home FA Cup tie against high-flying Aston Villa. There was little to suggest in either of those last two sterile games that Spurs can survive to the fourth round. Ollie Watkins and Co will be licking their lips.

Hopefully I will be made to eat my words, but I just cannot see the Spurs who have spluttered and stuttered through back-to-back draws sinking a Villa side that is in full flow. Thomas Frank will be like a cat on a hot tin roof on that touchline. His future could be hanging on the result. Spurs have now played 10 League games at home, winning just two, losing five and drawing three. Old timers will remember with misty eyes the good old days when White Hart Lane was a fortress. The sacking today of Ruben Amorim by Man United will serve as a warning to the under-fire Dane.

In fairness to Frank, he has never been able to field a first-choice team with injuries sidelining Kululevski, Maddison, Udogie, Solanke and now the creative Mohammed Kudus. The Dane is struggling to get balance and bite from the players who are fit.

Xavi Simons is available for selection at Bournemouth after his three-match suspension, and he could prove the link that was missing against Sunderland. Before his red card against Liverpool, I had made the point that he and countryman Micky van de Ven were giving Spurs a Double Dutch touch, and I am hoping to see more stability in a Spurs side that is struggling for vital solidity.

Loyalist Ben Davies' eighth goal in 244 Premier League appearances was reward for his spirited showing in a first half when Spurs should have had at least three more goals, but they went back to sleep walking in the second half and Sunderland might easily have stolen all three points.

Our Spurs Odyssey guru Paul H. Smith gives his bleak view of yesterday's draw HERE and shares with me a mood of pessimism approaching the Villa match.

The Sunderland side that visited yesterday came to park the bus in the first half and then ran us over with it in the closing stages of a game that exposed Tottenham's maddening inconsistency. Supporters of a certain age will remember the days when the Black Cats could boast of talent like Len "Clown Prince" Shackleton and the even then bombastic Brian Clough and would never have been defence minded.

Let's hope I have reason to change my tune after the Villa match. At the moment it's a funeral dirge.

I counted ten different players linked with transfers to Tottenham over the weekend following the daft decision to sell the likeable Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace.

It's going to take somebody special to come through that transfer window to lift us all out of our pit of depression.

Victory over Villa would help, but it would be dangerous to hold our breath.

COYS!

Here we go with the 19th week of our quiz that tests your knowledge of Tottenham players and the club's history ...

Which Yorkshireman started his League career at Elland Road, won eight England caps and against which team did he score the 94th minute winning goal for Spurs in a League Cup final at Wembley?

Please email your answer to me at soqleague@gmail.com and make the subject heading Quiz Week 19. Deadline: midnight this Saturday. I will do my best to respond to all who take part.

The rules are the same as in the previous 11 seasons. I ask a two-pronged question with three points at stake - two for identifying the player and one for the supplementary question. In the closing weeks of the competition I break the logjam of all-knowing Spurs-history experts with a real stinker of a tie-breaking poser that is based on opinion rather than fact. This is when I lose what few friends I have.

This season's main prize will be a framed certificate announcing the winner as SOQL champion 2026, plus three signed books to be revealed at a later date.

Last week I asked: Which Spurs player won six England caps despite the dominating presence of Frank Swift, and for which non-League team did he later become player-manager after winning Second and First Division championship medals with Tottenham?

Answer: Ted Ditchburn/Romford.

See you back here on Monday, hopefully in a better mood!

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