It’s all fun at White Hart Lane at the moment isn’t it? At the start of the season, dreams of the top 4 were at the fore… now? It’s all gone a bit awry. Now, a spat between Martin Jol and Jermaine Defoe seems to have reached boiling point. Apparently, Jol has told Jermain Defoe to sign a new contract, or rot in the reserves.

Poor old Martin Jol. A defeat to Arsenal sees his job (allegedly) dangling by a spindly thread. A poor start to the season and a battered Spurs cheque book has seen the big Dutchman coming under severe scrutiny from certain quarters. Even though there is no better option for Tottenham at the moment and Jol clearly doesn’t deserve the boot, it looks like his days could be numbered… and I love it…

A lovely instinctive strike from Kolo’s younger brother, signed by Barca this summer for a reported fee of €10m. On this evidence, they have picked up a bargain.

Arsenal 1-0 Manchester City
Cesc Fabregas finally found a breakthrough, despite an excellent performance from Manchester City goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel. The young Dane made a string of saves, including Robin van Persie’s 65th minute penalty.

Who is this slim hunk of a man? Surely not Big Martin Jol, before he got big? Yes, it’s true.

‘Thank you darling…’ Big Martin Jol turns on the charm, as only he can. Gabby Logan, ever the professional, takes it in her stride and laughs it off.

With a combined cost of around £250m, even Roman’s roubles would be stretched to afford this team consisting of the most expensive players (in their position) in the Premier League.

Everton piled the pressure on Spurs boss Martin Jol with a 1-3 victory at White Hart Lane. Joleon Lescott headed Everton into an early lead after losing ‘marker’ Anthony Gardner. Gardner returned the favour by exposing Lescott’s slack marking to equalise. A second goal of the season for Leon Osman and a deflected free-kick from Alan Stubbs completed the victory.

Every man and his dog had, pre-season, predicted big things for Spurs this season. All eyes looked toward them as a challenger for the sacred top 4 finish. Every Londoncentric person that is. You see, for me, Spurs look almost identical to last season, and while there is no doubt that they’ve added some quality to their squad this summer, they are, in essence, the same team. Over on SpursPies, before the game, all were predicting 3-1 and 2-0 victories. A comfortable margin to win a game by. As we all know, The Mackems spoiled the party (for Spurs fans at least)…

Our team-mates over at Spurs Pies have started the new season as they mean to go on by signing up an ace to their squad. Zoe is The Hot Spur and will be bringing her own brand of video reports to the site throughout the campaign. Check out the video below and then catch another one over at Spurs Pies now…

Following yesterday’s imaginatively titled Part One, today Pies profiles the home kits of the 10 Premiership teams who would have their names called at last on the school register.
Manchester City
There is a hint of baseball to Citeh’s new shirt, with its rather fetching white pinstripes. Reebok are out and French brand Le Coq Sportif (currently enjoying a Lazarus-style revival) are in. Last season’s white sleeves are also ditched, and on reflection it is probably a good call. Click here to buy it from Kitbag.

We’ve heard from quite a few bloggers about the imminent Premier League season, and now, we get to see what a Spurs fan thinks and how they will fare. Will they push for 4th? Well, it would annoy the Gooners eh? What’s more, this Spurs fan is the main boy at Shiny’s new Tottenham blog, SpursPies!

Following our feature on footballers who rap, perhaps we should next consider footballers who look like rappers. First we showed you that El Hadji Diouf is Pharrell Williams. Now we can conclusively proove that Spurs and England midfielder Jermaine Jenas is a passable double for US hip hop star Rich Boy. Nuff respec’ to Pies reader Craig for spotting this one.

1 The annual ‘will this be Liverpool’s year?’ discussions. It never is and this year is no exception.
2 Every pundit predicts that the three promoted teams will go straight back down. It hasn’t happened since 1998.
3 Alan Hansen maxes out his quote of Liverpool players/old boys for his Telegraph fantasy football team.

In one of the most surprising transfers yet this season, overweight Spurs striker Mido has joined underachieving (in the Prem at least) Sunderland for a fee of £6m.

Now this is one piece of transfer news that has left my jaw dropping in a most unattractive manner. Okay, so at Birmingham City the limited coffers reduce your targets more than those of the Premiership’s heavy-hitters. Yes, Birmingham is not the most glamourous or alluring place for foreign imports keen to move to the UK, and Steve Bruce’s managerial track record might not include many impressive trophies, but £3 million on

TShirts365 celebrate Tony Soprano-alike Tottenham manager Martin Jol with this gangster-themed effort. Capiche? Menacing Martin sits atop his pistol in this spoof of the Channel 4 drama series The Sopranos. Click here to buy the t-shirt for £14.99.

Sven has beaten Spurs to the signing of Bulgarian international, Martin Petrov, following a £4.7m deal that brings him to Manchester City from Athletico Madrid.

The business end of the Premiership has been dominated in recent years by the Big Four, namely Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. Few teams have even come close to challenging that dominance, but Chelski boss Jose Mourinho believes that Spurs are now strong enough to challenge that group this coming season, and thus create a ‘Big Five’.

Seriously, is Mido worth six million pence, let alone six million quid? That’s a lot of money for a player who I would best describe as ‘mercurial’ (ie. wildly inconsistent, overweight and lazy). Spurs must be loving this deal. According to the Beeb, Blues boss Steve Bruce has also made an enquiry about Mido’s Egypt and Spurs team-mate, Hossam Ghaly. Hmm, if Mido is the second-worst player at Spurs, then Ghaly is the worst. Spurs fans would be absolutely delighted to offload both Mido and Ghaly to a Premiership rival. Cheers Brucey.

Is there no end to Spurs spending? Rumours are that the club are in ‘advanced negotiations’ to bring pocket-rocket, Shaun Wright-Williams, to White Hart Lane this week.

There are bound to be a few more twists to this year’s transfer season, especially if someone remembers where they put Carlos Tevez’s ownership papers, but new TV money and the arrival of more glory hunting billionaires means there’s been plenty of action.
Here’s what we think are the ten best deals done so far:

Something to please Spurs fans this morning: New Tottenham signings Younes Kaboul, Darren Bent and Gareth Bale pose with manager Martin Jol (far left) and sporting director Damien Comolli at Spurs Lodge on 5 July, 2007 in London, England. [Photo: Hamish Blair/Getty Images]

Fresh Horror Hair talent arrived in the Premiership today as Spurs wrapped up the signing of French under-21 captain Younes Kaboul. The £8 million-rated centre back seems to be going for some sort of thatched cottage effect. Pies is not sure what the sticky stuff holding his hair in place is, but there is every chance it originated from Martin Jol if the spherical Dutchman’s gushing quotes are anything to go by. He said: “If you ask people in France who is seen as the hottest prospect in defence they will say Younes Kaboul. It’s important to have quality players in defence and with him, we have that.”

It looks like Darren Bent is off to White Hart Lane, for around £17m – yes, because he is worth more than Thierry Henry. If the move goes ahead, then the soon-to-be-ex-Charlton striker will have to fight Robbie Keane, Fat Mido and possibly Jermain Defoe for the right to partner Dimitar Berbatov up front. (Although [...]