By Alan Duffy

Tottenham Hotspur 3-0 Bolton Wanderers Premier League 3rd December 2011

Harry Redknapp's Lilywhites strolled home to yet another league victory as they consolidated their place in the top three in the league.

Third meets fourth on Thursday in the English Premier League. The home side, Tottenham, are on a ridiculously good run where they have garnered 33 points out of the last 39 available. That means they have moved from a precarious position in the early part of the season, near the bottom of the table after damaging defeats against Manchester United and Manchester City, to the loftier position of third.

The main question this weekend appears to be whether Rafael van der Vaart will return to the starting line up and reclaim his regular place behind the main striker.

According to manager Harry Redknapp, VDV is fit once again to challenge for his slot but there is a doubt over Sandro who has picked up a groin problem.

There are several candidates for the award this weekend including the goal scorers who sealed our 3-0 victory.
Of those, Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon caused problems throughout the game, particularly after Bolton had gone down to ten men on the twenty minute mark.
Our defence were pretty quiet throughout the match so the main contenders can be found further up the pitch.

Last season was a mixed campaign for many Spurs players and Aaron Lennon was one of those who ended the year with his Spurs career seemingly at a crossroads.

The season was punctuated with brief highlights including his winner over Liverpool while the low points seemed to start with his late withdrawal from the side to face Real Madrid at the Bernabeu.

Am I dreaming? If I am long may it continue! everyone's buzzing with positivity and we have our beloved Spurs back. I'm no longer looking across London and asking ‘why can't we play like that' or bemoaning the fact that we can't we grind results out like United.

From front to back we are functioning as a top class team; Brad Friedel is showing us that life begins at 40!

By Alan Duffy

Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Sunderland Premier League 18th December 2011

They may have started the game without the crocked pair of Gareth Bale and Jermain Defoe and lost Aaron Lennon after just 27 minutes, but Harry Redknapp's in-form Spurs side still had far too much left in the locker for the visiting Black Cats.

After a disappointing week the only thing that really counted yesterday was a win. The absence of Bale and the early departure of Aaron Lennon took away much of our flowing football and potent threat and while Sunderland offered little in the way of goal scoring chances, the 1-0 victory wasn't one of our best.

The Sunderland fan on the train has low expectations but he's loyal and a long way from home on a cold Sunday afternoon. Spurs have more points, better players and better prospects but he has his devotion to his club, a precious commodity these days for any any fan as far as I'm concerned, so he expresses this in the time-honoured fashion: 'Where were you when you were s**t?

It wasn't pretty. On a cold December Sunday afternoon, Tottenham Hotspur saw off a resilient Sunderland to record a 1-0 victory and get back to winning ways in the Premier League.

Winning ugly is the sign of champions. Not getting carried away here, I'm not suggesting Spurs are going to win the title, there's a chance of it, but Manchester City are a scarily good outfit and their neighbours are impossible to write off.

It's a mixed bag of news this morning with regards to the three players who suffered injuries over the weekend as they battle to be fit for the Chelsea game on Thursday.

Speaking on Talksport, assistant manager Kevin Bond insisted that neither Bale nor Defoe would be risked if they weren't fully fit while it seems that Aaron Lennon can definitely be ruled out after suffering his hamstring tear.

With the loss of Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon on Sunday, Spurs lost much of the potency that had helped them climb the Premiership table and into third place.

Ultimately we won the game but if you saw a brief but apt Match of the Day package on Sunday night, you'll have seen where Bale in particular, was sorely missed.

'Tis the season, for snatching a stocking full of points at White Hart Lane.

Hey, it's that guy

Man. This is kind of big, huh?

Win, lose or draw in Wigan over the weekend, this match with Tottenham was always going to be a pivotal one. Not that matches with Spurs aren't always showcase events, but this season the derby seems to be taking on a bit more weight with both clubs in the pursuit of Champions League football for 2012-13.

For many years - too many to mention - Tottenham simply could not beat Chelsea. Yes, there was the 5-1 victory at White Hart Lane in the 2002 League Cup semi-final, when everything clicked an even Sergei Rebrov scored, but in the Premier League up until 2006, it just would not happen for Spurs.

While Aaron Lennon is definitely out of tomorrow's match with Chelsea, Gareth Bale is also rated as very doubtful for the clash.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the game, Spurs manager Harry Redknapp gave his comments on how the two wide men are progressing and the news on Lennon is a little more encouraging than first thought,

"Gareth's struggling at the moment," reported Harry.

For the first time in many games, there are far more questions to deliberate ahead of predicting the starting XI for tonight's match.

As we all know, Aaron Lennon has been ruled out of this game while Gareth Bale remains a major doubt. There are question marks too over Ledley King, Jermain Defoe and Emmanuel Adebayor.

Several senior Spurs players are currently struggling with hamstring injuries and that could lead to an early move in the transfer market when the window opens next month.

Ledley King, Younes Kaboul, Aaron Lennon, Rafael van der Vaart and Jermain Defoe all have similar problems and after enjoying a settled side for so long, Harry now has a major selection headache ahead of the festive period.

Apologies for the tardiness – AANP Towers has been overrun by tiny people the last few days...

And it had all begun so well. Our lot spent the opening minutes pinging the ball between themselves with such dizzying rapidity that the only time a Chelski touched the thing in the opening ten minutes was that lad on halfway, who was promptly crunched by Sandro, releasing Bale to release Adebayor for our goal.

A couple of days ago, I happened to comment on Twitter following Man Utd's 5-0 thrashing of Wigan at Old Trafford and Man City's 0-0 away draw with West Bromwich Albion, that the title was now down to a two horse race as both Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool had failed to beat either Wolves, Fulham or Blackburn respectively.