Squad sheets: Aston Villa v Liverpool

Stewart Downing, who scored the only goal of the game in the corresponding fixture at the end of last season, can expect a hostile reception from Aston Villa supporters on his return to his former club. The England winger has still to score for a Liverpool side that have lost only once in their last 10 league matches.

Ellie Jenas recently did some modelling for Katie Price and Lamis Khamis brand Day 22. The photos are below.... click to enlarge
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With Shay Given out for a month, Brad Guzan gets his first Premier League start, and it's also emerged this week that the American is in contract discussions with his current deal set to expire at the end of the season. Jermaine Jenas is out for the season, and with the club apparently on the hook for his wages the less said about that the better.

The football world is still trying, and failing, to come to terms with the loss of a legend.

The shocking news on the sudden death of Wales manager Gary Speed brought the country to a stand-still. Since the announcement there has been an endless amount of tributes for the 42 year old husband and father, showing just how much he meant to not only football, but the UK itself.

By FRANCO PANIZO

Wayne Rooney will be able to play in group stage of Euro 2012 after all.

Accompanied by England head coach Fabio Capello, Rooney had his three-game ban reduced to two after a successful appeal to UEFA on Thursday. The decision to shorten Rooney's ban, which came as a result of Rooney receiving a red card against Montenegro in a Euro qualifier last month, means he will be eligible to play in England's final group match against Ukraine.

It's been an unhappy stay at Aston Villa for Jermaine Jenas and after waiting to make his debut for the Midlands side, news has been confirmed that he is likely to out for the rest of the season.

The announcement on Tottenham's official club website reads,

‘Jermaine Jenas has undergone surgery to his left Achilles tendon and is likely to miss the rest of the season, but should return for the start of pre-season.

One of the bigger talking points has been the return of Ashley Young. James Milner showed class by not celebrating at Eastlands recently, expect Ashley Young to do exactly the same today, but preferably because he hasn't scored.

Either way, it's a tough game ahead and I suspect there will be a bigger interest in the manner we McLeish approaches the game than any real expectation in getting much from it.

Two days on and the football world is still trying, and failing, to come to terms with the loss of a legend.

Sunday's shocking news on the sudden death of Wales manager Gary Speed brought the country to a stand-still. Since the announcement there has been an endless amount of tributes for the 42 year old husband and father, showing just how much he meant to not only football, but the UK itself.

Gary Gardner stepped onto the Colchester pitch in place of Blackburn's Jason Lowe in the 62nd minute with England leading 2-0 against Iceland in their Euro 2013 qualifier tonight. Barely more than half an hour later, the referee blew the final whistle and scoreboard read 5-0; Gardner adding two sublime late goals and a lot more to his growing reputation.

I could write any old nonsense in this first bit, given the sheer sauciness of the post's meat. What do you mean it's all nonsense anyway? Well. I am shocked. Shocked and appalled. Okay, you've got a point. But if you can ignore that for a second and the rather delicious prize we've got on offer, we'll first try and wade through some of the Hotspur related news that might've unearthed itself over the last day or so.

By Alan Duffy

Aston Villa 3-2 Norwich City Premier League 5th November 2011

A good old-fashioned five-goal thriller unfolded at Villa Park on Saturday, with the home side coming out on top courtesy of their in-form forward line.

A much improved performance from Villa in a lively game led to a vital three points at home thanks to two goals from Darren Bent, and a goal for the provider of both those goals; man of the match Gabby Agbonlahor. Goals from Anthony Pilkington and Steve Morison bookended the home goals, and set up a nervous final ten minutes.

Benny was confused. Had Rafa not seen how good his wife looks!?It's not so much a changing of the tide anymore - the dam has been broken. For the two North London clubs, the direction of the rivalry has largely been one way over the past 15 or so years but no longer. Spurs beat Arsenal 2-1 on a blazing hot Sunday afternoon at White Hart Lane and they didn't do it by raising their game and Arsenal lowering theirs: this Spurs display was worse than it has been in recent weeks and Arsenal rolled out their best work in the same amount of time.

Fabregas' entry into the Tottenham Hotspur Hall of Fame was seconds away from being confirmedBefore the first of last season's North London Derbies, this blog took a little stroll down memory lane and had a little look at the games from the previous season and how they had been previewed and then reviewed on the blogosphere.

As we saw on Saturday, Harry's transfer dealings have made first team selection just that little bit easier and after several departures from the Lane at the end of August, the temptation to slot in Jenas or Crouch has now been removed.

Injuries also played their part in the final line up against Wolves with Sandro, VDV, Dawson and Pienaar ruled out while the likes of Bassong, Corluka and Pavlyuchenko were left out for other reasons.

Our Premier League season gets back underway this weekend against Wolverhampton Wanderers and I've had a chat with the Wolves blogger Thomas Baugh, of the aptly-named Wolves Blog, who thinks that Saturday's game could have a pleasing result for any Spurs fan.

Wolves have hit the ground running this season and are so far unbeaten.

By Chris Wright

Just a few photos of Aston Villa showing off their deadline day signings, Alan Hutton and Jermaine Jenas, outside the club's Bodymoor Heath training complex...

Speaking of fresh meat, it was nice of Villa to put out a plate of breaded cold cuts and breaded ham for the gathered journos at the press conference afterwards.

The dust may have settled, but it would be frightfully remiss to pootle along any further without casting a beady eye over the various to-ings and fro-ings of the transfer window. Step this way please...

Welcome to the Lane...

Scott Parker

Curiouser and curiouser, we now somehow find ourselves bottom of the table yet with both of last season's Players of the Year in the ranks.

Everton's troubles continue as they were only able to name 18 players, seven short of the maximum, in their official squad submitted to the Premier League.

However, that 18 does not include Under-21 players, so the likes of Ross Barkley do not feature but are still eligible to play as clubs can use an unlimited number of younger-age players.

Summer transfer window winners and losers: Football Spy Darren Lewis rates each Premier League club's business

Arsenal: LOSERS Are Mikel Arteta and Yossi Benayoun really adequate replacements for Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri? Arsene Wenger left his shopping far too late.

News of Hutton's departure had quickly reached the players4-2-3-1: Friedel; Walker, Dawson, Gallas, Assou Ekotto; Parker/Huddlestone, Modric; Lennon, van der Vaart, Bale; Adebayor. Has a nice ring to it, does it not?
The transfer window didn't so much slam shut as it did gently but firmly close last night and Spurs have been left, once again, to rue a couple of deals that got away.

On a day when many managers strive to negotiate the ideal transfer fee for their ideal targets, there is often a realization that the ideal deal might not be struck after all.

Fortunately for these managers, not all is lost when they fail to agree a fee for someone they really want to bring to their clubs.

With a few hours to go before the transfer window closes, the only confirmed deasl involving Spurs to date is the signing of Scott Parker from West Ham and David Bentley's loan to the Hammers.

Beyond this, there is a lot of momentum concerning a bid for Gary Cahill which may involve Sebastien Bassong going the other way.

Emmanuel Adebayor is unavailable for Sunday's game against Manchester City so for now at least, the usual question of who plays up front remains.

Luka Modric has fully recovered from a hamstring injury and according to Harry Redknapp should be involved however the club are still without Peter Crouch, Ledley King, William Gallas, Sandro, Wilson Palacios, Steven Pienaar and Danny Rose.

Having brought Harry Kane, Tom Carroll and Andros Townsend into the 18 man squad for tonight's return leg against Hearts, the exact line up is harder than most to predict.

What we do know is that Huddlestone and Modric are doubtful while King, Sandro, Pienaar, Rose, Gallas and Palacios are definitely out.

The takeover at QPR could be good news for Spurs fans looking to trim the deadwood from the squad before the transfer window closes in just seven days' time.

From the first two games of our season, it seems apparent that Peter Crouch is the odd striker out and having not featured thus far, it's suggested that Harry is just waiting to seal the Adebayor deal before letting Crouch go.

Macedonian media has begun to pay attention to Veljko Paunovic's run of form for the Philadelphia Union, naming the midfielder as one of the country's potential internationals to watch.

Despite playing twice for Serbia - when it was still Serbia-Montenegro - in the early part of this millennium, Paunovic is able to make a one-time switch to Macedonia because of FIFA's eligibility rule change in 2009.

It's difficult to be positive following a three nil defeat to team deprived of its star centre backs, and with an average age of twenty-three, but I guess as a Spurs fan I should have known better than to expect anything different.

I honestly believed we could take our Europa league form to Old Trafford, expose their young defenders lack of experience, and put an end to our twenty-two years without a win.

With just over a week to go before the transfer window closes, the papers at the weekend were talking of ten deals in ten days for Spurs before the end of this month.

The reports included the proposed moves for Lassana Diarra and Emmanuel Adebayor which seem to grow closer by the hour and there is talk of one more signing, but most of the focus is on the exit door and Daniel Levy's streamlining of the dead wood.

And so, finally, off we go, in the rather unorthodox settings of ITV4 and Edinburgh. It is a truth universally acknowledged that any Scottish team whose name does not rhyme with either "Beltic" or "Changers" is there for the taking, so first game of the season or not, this lot must be destroyed. ‘Arry has understandably enough made noises about fielding kids and reserves in the Europa League, but while none of us want injuries ahead of the United trip on Mon, it would nevertheless make sense to field a full-strength side tonight.

The news of Spurs sudden injury crisis in midfield may have wider implications than mere selection for tomorrow's tie with Hearts.

Daniel Levy's promised period of streamlining has been slow to say the least but after Robbie Keane left the club earlier this week, it had been hoped that more would follow.

Look out Tiger! It's Jermain Jenas, dinosaur hunter

Last week's riot-induced postponements left four sets of players needing to keep their fitness levels up. So well done to Tottenham's Jermain Jenas, who played an exhausting 18 holes of crazy golf at the Dinosaur Safari course in Borehamwood, Herts on Friday afternoon one hole behind 3PM!

Our pre-season campaign was rounded off by a 2-1 win over an impressive Athletic Club Bilbao side, who gave us an ideal test before our opening Premier League game against Everton next week. There was an extremely impressive and vocal crowd at the Lane for our only home game of the pre-season.

My shout for a guest report from the Brighton game was answered by Mike Hooley, a man who's first game, at the age of eight, was the '81 Cup Final Replay. Good start! Unsurprisingly for someone getting their Spurs education in the '80′s, his favourite player is Glenn Hoddle.

Here's Mike's take on yesterday's match:

Brighton 2 Spurs 3: Pre-season friendly, 30th July 2011.

If Seinfeld was famously the show about nothing, then Spurs are the Seinfeld of football, at least for now.

In the past I've been relieved and grateful when things have gone quiet. I cherish rare moments of peace and quiet to punctuate the bedlam of the season. No scandals or internecine arguments, the media looking elsewhere, not to mention winning football matches.

Finally, I am writing about a football match. Not a good match but a match nevertheless.

Tottenham's pre-season tour of South Africa, under the guidance of Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan, started with defeat as George Lebese's stoppage-time goal earned a 1-0 win for Kaizer Chiefs.

While we've become accustomed to see Martin Jol linked with a whole host of Spurs players, we haven't yet seen Jermain Defoe being touted as a likely candidate for a trip to Craven Cottage.

There are reports today suggesting that a ‘double swoop' is on the cards and while Jermaine Jenas is one of the names in the frame, the report claims that Defoe is BMJ's other target.

As we've said before, while we all have our list of players who we'd like to see leave the Lane before the start of the season, not all of those are going to depart. Either through lack of interest from other clubs or because Harry will stubbornly hang on to them, not all of Levy's streamlining plans will turn out how we would like.

While there has been a little talk and maybe much hope over Jermaine Jenas leaving Tottenham this summer, there have been very few strong rumours up until now. Other than some brief suggestions that he was on Neil Warnock's QPR radar, it has all been very quiet as far as JJ was concerned.

Yesterday however, stories began to surface that Fenerbahce were preparing an offer, believed to be in the region of around £5m for the midfielder.

Is anyone starting to get frustrated at the way Spurs conduct their transfer activity?

With our backs to the wall, when players have had their heads turned, you have to admire how Daniel Levy has drained millions from other chairman for the likes of Berbatov, Carrick and Keane.

Unfortunately the flip side of this approach has meant that Spurs are stuck with a large group of players that are beyond the age where they can improve, and their wages and valuations are so high we can't get rid of them.