Spurs seeking to strike the right balance

Tottenham 0 Aston Villa 0

In his absence, Spurs have the youthful promise of Polish striker Grzegorz Rasiak - or the option of playing the dynamic little combination of 5ft 7in Robbie Keane and 5ft 6in Jermain Defoe, the pairing Jol backed in this anti-climactic encounter on Saturday.

Defoe, an England-class poacher with World Cup ambitions but a diminutive figure who often literally fails by mere inches to make himself a presence, toiled for 76 minutes of only his second Tottenham start in a dozen games.

And, although Republic of Ireland international Keane toiled just as hard with him, the result of it all against David O’Leary’s uncompromising Aston Villa defence and athletic goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen was zero.

After dismissal from the FA Cup at Leicester and then luckless defeat at Liverpool on successive weekends, it was another frustrating exercise against Villa on an afternoon Spurs dominated.

Jol insisted: “I don’t think we did a lot wrong. We played good football and our goalkeeper didn’t have a difficult ball to collect.

“Our only problem was that we couldn’t score, but it is no good groaning about missing Mido. We knew about this situation a couple of months ago and it means with the players we have left we must play football right from the back and keep it on the ground.

“Jermain and his confidence is fine. He’s been on the bench many times before and come on and scored goals out of nothing. I could have gambled by starting with Rasiak and people say this combination can work but Robbie is trying hard to show it can work with Jermain.

“We won’t do anything now with buying. I don’t think so. If we change our minds we will let you know, but I can’t say I’m frustrated - only disappointed in that we failed to make a gap on Arsenal when we had the opportunity after they lost for three points.”

Opta Fact: Spurs failed to score on Saturday for the first time in their last nine Premiership home games.

Opta Fact: Villa failed to fire in a single shot on target against Tottenham.