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.