Like the Ferrerro Rocher Ambassador, we at AANP Towers are rather spoiling you today. Not only are we providing a hastily cobbled-together list of potential Lane departees, but we're also implementing the flawless, scientifically-proven Who-Would-Buy-Them guide to the standard of team they would attract, thereby ascertaining whether they're worth keeping.

It's been said that the measure of greatness is not how you react to victory, but how you react to defeat. I could not, even in my most wildly partisan moments, straight-facedly describe Spurs as "great", but I ruddy well expect some sort of reaction to last week's twenty-minute debacle at Old Trafford.

I'm willing to make a placard, but a whistle and go on a little march along the High Road suggesting to the world that this was our best result of the season. Before you all go spluttering coffee over you computer screens and rolling in the aisles, consider the evidence. Sure, we have raised our game [.

I feel like Mr Pink after the dust settles in that brief, but oh-so-memorable shoot-out. I'll just tip-toe around the bloody mess, pick up the case full of loot and hot-foot it out of here.

The bloody mess is Bentley to Man City, Petrov the other way, David James splattered all over the place, and even Anton Ferdinand, sitting lifelessly on a chair minus an ear.

Before beginning the gruesome business of the post-mortem I think it's worth doffing my cap towards Man Utd – they were a quality act yesterday. I demonstrated in my preview that mathematics is hardly the academic subject of choice at AANP Towers, but nevertheless it really did seem that being reduced to 10 men made them play as if they had 12.

Finally, I look forward to a Spurs game imbued with a spirit of sunny optimism! Huzzah - the good times are about to roll once more. Like a shallow secular kid the night before Christmas I can barely wait for the superficial short-term joys which tomorrow will bring! Anyone who has found themselves entangled within my [.

I write this with crumbs on my lips and a napkin gently dabbing around my mouth, having merrily lunched upon several large helpings of humble pie. As I clicked my heels all bonny, blithe and gay, and playfully pinched the cheeks of bewildered small children like a modern-day Scrooge (post-enlightenment), I also began the quest [.

Confusion reigns amongst the great and good of Tottenham after yesterday's draw, with no-one quite sure how to react. Typically, reactions at the Lane must be of massively unrealistic expectation or miserable pessimism and criticism, as previously articulated. There is never any middle ground. The draw at Sunderland has therefore baffled everyone.

Things We Need To Sort Out, Preferably Before The Start Of Next Season is likely to be a slightly intermittent series, for, as I've mentioned previously, we're only in need of some gentle tweaking here and there, rather than a full-blown overhaul. However, near the top of the agenda is a problem that is both white and black, English and Irish, has four legs, and can be seen sometimes waving and shouting around the halfway line, and other times shooting on sight around the area.

Suffering withdrawal? Desperately seeking an unnecessarily nail-biting one-nil win? Confused by the absence of someone at whom to scream "F*ck sake Jenas"? Then knock yourself out with the All Action No Plot Awards, and re-live Tottenham Hotspur, season 2008-09

Two-Points-Eight-Games Award For Completely Turning Around His Season
Step forward Heurelho Gomes.

Ruud van Nistelrooy - While I've always been keen to hurl down some funky shapes on the boogie floors of London's finer night-spots on a booze-fuelled Saturday night, I've been honest enough to admit that I'm not a natural on the dance-floor. No, really. But by golly if I were, I would have danced an impromptu jig of delight at the news that we're sniffing at Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Ahoy-hoy. You may have noticed an eerie silence descending over AANP Towers in the last fortnight. Apologies – ‘twas initially intended as no more than a short break for an All-Action Stag Weekend (the impressive casualty list including A&E for the stag, a broken limb, a black eye, two lost phones, one lost wallet and a lost passport).

So, after several weeks in which dust has gathered and tumbleweed idly rolled around White Hart Lane, the last seven days have seen a welcome return to complete all-action-no-plot madness at Spurs, with Darren Bent's glorious rant, a spell behind bars for Jermain Defoe, a big-money signing and even a trophy.

Bassong, eh? Well first up, if you're looking for an in-depth Strengths-Weakness-Opportunities-Threats analysis of the chap, then look elsewhere. We at AANP Towers spent most of last season watching Spurs, rather than Newcastle, which I would suggest is a fairly pardonable offence.

Word on the street is that he is quite handy.

Well truth be told I've found this all a little unsettling so far. Top of the league, three wins in three - and looking good value for it too. This is not the Tottenham I grew up with. The Tottenham I know and love would consistently let me down. Capitulate from positions of seeming invulnerability.

Having started this season like a runaway train, we now go into a game at home to Birmingham demanding victory. Not a bad thing I suppose, although I do try to remind myself that sooner or later we will be brought unceremoniously back down to earth.Points of Debate

The midfield picks itself, as does the back-four barring injuries; but the striking pair will, as ever, stoke up some debate.

No-one does fickle quite like we do at Tottenham, yet despite this, the reaction to last week's defeat has by and large retained a sense of perspective. 12 points from 5 games still represents a ruddy good start to proceedings, and with forthcoming fixtures involving Burnley, Bolton, Portsmouth and Stoke we ought to be chugging along nicely by the time the clocks go back.

Believe it or not, win this by four goals and we'll be top of the table, albeit until Chelski conclude their evening game. Try informing your nearest Spurs-supporting chum of this fact, and the chances are that you will be greeted with little more than a nod of approval and a healthy dose of perspective.

If you enjoy those 15 half-time minutes when the subs come trotting out and half-heartedly ping the ball around, you'll love tonight. Pav, Bentley, Hutton and Bale are all in line to start, as ‘Arry rings the changes with half an eye (in a manner of speaking) on Saturday's game.

League or Cups?

A curious one, this. Back in the days of yore, when Luka Modric limped off against Birmingham, I don't think anyone foresaw things panning out quite this way. Robbie Keane undroppable, wingers treated like lepers, long-ball upon long-ball. We're muddling through, but the sooner both the Croatian genius and Lennon return, the better.

Same old, same old. You'd think that after a couple of decades and probably the best part of a thousand games it would be a bit easier to stomach, but no, Spurs' capacity to frustrate remains unparalleled. Yet again, come the final whistle I was left looking around for a small puppy or irritating child [.

Believe it or not, back at the start of the transfer window most of the talk at the Lane was whether or not Stewart One-Trick Downing would dip his right shoulder, dart out to the left and pitch up in N17. Seems an age ago now, n'est-ce pas? And who would have possibly imagined back [...]

So mission all but accomplished then 'Arry? Elimination from Europe virtually guaranteed, and mercifully we can look forward to far fewer of those pesky football matches that just seem to get in the way of the manager's true raison d'être (trying out his latest gags on the sycophants at press conferences), and the players' weekly [.

Given that this season I've needed so little encouragement to bow my head in despair and slip into a straitjacket of pessimism whenever the Tottenham circus rolls back into town, it is strange and vaguely ironic that today's most hopeless of situations finds me at my most optimistic. A two-goal deficit would be tricky enough [.

Up and down the better half of North London the deluded are insisting that our Carling Cup performance will prove something of a turning-point for the rest of our season. Earnestly they point out that we matched, and at times outdid the European Champions, or some version thereof - for 120 minutes no less.

There's a great big Uefa Cup-shaped hole in my life at the moment. Instead of working myself into a frenzy of midweek worry, pessimism and nerves, I've been at a loss for something to stimulate the usual heart palpitations. Had to resort to half-heartedly watching Liverpool in the Champions League, throwing stones at small garden [.

As the visit of Chelski approacheth the time is probably right for me to confess my sordid little secret - I don't actually hate Ashley Cole. Controversial Indifference About Ashley Cole This will hardly endear me to my fellow lilywhites. Indeed, Cole is such a national figure of hate – and his delectable wife such a national [.

As the final whistle sounded all restraint and reason duly gave up trying to make themselves heard and discreetly slunk out of the stadium. It was neither the time nor the place for that sort of behaviour.  Instead it is the time for giddy over-excitement, the time to kill the fattened calf and start making [.

Sunday: Ledley gets called up to the England squad. Monday: ‘Arry's twitches go into overdrive – "Madness", he rages, "The boy can't train all week! His knee swells up the size of Croydon! We only had two points..." Tuesday: Ledley gets sent back home by England. (Perhaps for maximal effect this should be read whilst listening to [.

Six games left, and while trips to Old Trafford, Goodison and Anfield look tricky, our home games vs West Brom, Man City and, first of all, Newcastle, are eminently winnable.

If you look carefully, the words "home banker" can clearly be seen etched across this fixture. On current form Newcastle are amongst the worst in the Premiership.

Manchester United away will be a good test of how fair we've come this season. Actually, the very fact that I can type that and not immediately be carted off to the nearest nuthouse is itself a measure of how far we've come, irrespective of how the game pans out.

The fact that we had only two points from eight games a few months back has had all meaning sucked out of it by ‘Arry's narcissism, so it's easy to forget that once upon a time this wasn't just a relentless soundbite, but actually a damning indictment of what a wretched team we were.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics, but a scoreline never spoke a truer word than Everton 0-0 Tottenham yesterday. We edged the first half, they edged the second half and neither ‘keeper had a serious save to make.

There were some interesting sub-plots though. ‘Arry Redknapp has developed a serious allergy to change of any form, either before or during games.

Not normally a betting man, but I might just stake all my worldly possessions and the lives of some of less significant relatives on Spurs winning 1-0 today. Nothing in particular to do with the opposition or circumstances, it just seems de rigeur at the Lane these days. If Spurs were a cricket team they'd push an early single, then stay on 1-0 for the remainder of their overs.

There is a scene in 80's thriller Black Rain in which the character played by the cracking Andy Garcia gets himself into a rather bad-tempered war of words and finger-wagging with some rather devious Japanese gangsters. In fact, the situation escalates a tad worryingly for Garcia, who soon finds himself defenceless, and faced by one of the said gangsters who is now tootling around on a motor-bike whilst wielding a great big samurai sword.

So, it's once more unto the breach, for the new season is upon us. The friendlies are done, fantasy league teams picked – all that's left is for AANP Towers to rustle up a list of top ten aims for season 2009-10, and then we can get cracking...

1. European Qualification

Top six, or a trophy.

The deluded pre-season optimism of Spurs fans is a quintessential part of the British summer, up there alongside heroic failure at Wimbledon and an English batting collapse. Like moths to a flame we just can't seem to help ourselves banging on each summer about making the top four.

Typically the wafer-thin bases for this argument are a fairly unnecessary spending spree; rampant (but entirely irrelevant) pre-season form; and the rather unscientific assumption, more commonly found in six year-olds, that if you repeat a lie often enough you can start to believe that it's actually true!

How's this for hard-hitting, bone-crunching, investigative journalism? AANP Towers can exclusively reveal, via its deep network of KGB-style informants who have brutally beaten the information out of their contacts, that our glorious leader 'Arry, and his trusty sidekick Kevin Bond, are on a plane to Glasgow!

It's been a pleasant few days, as we've all had ample opportunity to bask in the warm afterglow of the well-deserved win over Liverpool. It has also been pleasing to note that, despite this, a healthy sense of perspective has been retained. Most reasonable souls have avoided the temptation to conclude from the win against a top-four team that we're just about nailed on for the title.

A win against a top-four team; a win away in a potential banana-skin of a game against relegation fodder; now a London derby - one way or another we are certainly having our credentials rigorously tested in these early days.

I desperately hope we win tomorrow. This has nothing to do with the whole issue of enmity with West Ham - as I have previously confessed, I am neither here nor there on that issue.

Still reeling from the shock revelation that the word "gullible" had been removed from the dictionary, we at AANP Towers were sent scrambling to our official panic stations yesterday as news of ‘Arry's alleged departure spread like wildfire. The panic button was hit, the lights flashed and the stern lady kept announcing "This is not a drill".