One Consolation ... Spurs Are In Crisis Too!

Spurs, still searching for their first league victory after five games, again looked short of ideas in attack and Juande Ramos, the manager, withdrew two of his multi-million pound summer signings, Roman Pavlyuchenko and David Bentley, who had both failed to fire.

In a game of poor quality, Spurs looked every bit the side holding up the rest of the Premiership.

It was hardly a surprise when Pavlyuchenko did not come out for the second half.

The Russian did not look injured but failed to even take his place on the bench in the second half as Spurs laboured in vain.

Juande Ramos says he may rest Pavlyuchenko for the Carling Cup third-round match, as the player has off-field problems too.

Pavlyuchenko is in hot water over his struggles to learn English.

Russian newspaper Tvoi Den claims the deal which brought Pavlyuchenko to White Hart Lane included an agreement that he would learn basic footballing terms within his first few weeks at the club.

But, the paper claims, the striker is still not able to understand coach Juande Ramos without the help of an interpreter. Ramos himself has come under-fire recently for not gaining a good grasp of English since joining Tottenham 11 months ago.

Sources close to Pavlyuchenko told the paper: "It's a tradition in the London clubs to get together a day before the kick-off.

"Pavlyuchenko was there but didn't understand a single word being spoken, and his English is so poor he wasn't able to ask questions."