FA Cup Sunday, Spurs at Villa Park and match facts from the BBC

Spurs are a funny Club. Best stadium in the Premier League, making lots of money and they go and appoint an Australian that managed Celtic. It's like they didn't want to spend any of that money.

First, you've got a 50/50 chance of winning the League in Scotland your first season. If you do win it, the chances of you winning it the next season are greater. Scotland is about the best players. In Scotland you can tell your better players to attack and you'll win.

In England, it's a little different. After a few games, the other really good players are told by their usually very good managers what to do and they do it and they counter your one dimensional game. The Australian is doing the same thing, time after time and expecting different results.

And when he turned around and said he always wins in his second season, I didn't gasp, but I wondered to myself why any sensible person would say that. Then it dawned on me. And I think it's dawned on his players because they're not playing for him any longer. And Spurs have so much potential.

I'm not joking here, they are potentially the biggest side in London. They just need the right manager. And I don't think it's down to Daniel Levy. He's too clever to now know what's needed. I think he hired the Australian because it would be easier to manage the Australian. He probably convinced the Australian to tell the world about him always winning in the second season and the Australian probably didn't need much convincing to go ahead and do it.

Levy probably watched it happen and chuckled to himself. I like Daniel Levy.

The sad truth about Spurs is that the Australian is on the brink of getting the sack and we all know it's coming. I suspect even the Australian knows it. And it's on him, but he shouldn't be hounded out for it because everyone knew what they were getting when they hired him and he has delivered.

This is just as good as he is and Levy knew this was a gamble and Levy will sack him when Levy wants to. Levy will sack him when it suits Levy, but the sack is coming. The right manager at Spurs and they'd be challenging but it's always a gamble. All they can hope for at the moment is a random win every now and then.

And this I guess is when I talk about the match on Sunday, because you can't predict random and every match at this level is tough, so we have to be prepared for whatever they throw at us. But it's going to be an interesting match, because I suspect we are going to see some of our new players.

And the FA Cup is a good match to let them show us what they're made of. I'm not suggesting that we treat this as a training match or anything, but the League and the Champions League are more important. And that's maybe what Ange Postecoglou thought about the League Cup, so we have to be prepared.

I'll be back in a few hours. I've spilt coffee down my shirt and have an in real life meeting in 40 minutes. Sorry.

Match facts from the BBC

• Aston Villa have progressed from just one of their last six FA Cup ties against Tottenham Hotspur, winning 1-0 at White Hart Lane in a third round replay after a goalless draw at Villa Park in 1992. 

• Tottenham Hotspur have won nine of their last 10 away games against Aston Villa in all competitions (L1), with their last two wins coming by the same 4-0 scoreline (April 2022 and March 2024).

• Aston Villa are looking to reach the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time since 2014-15, when they eventually reached the final before losing 4-0 to Arsenal.

• Tottenham have progressed from four of their last five FA Cup fourth round ties, though did lose 1-0 against Manchester City at this stage of the competition last season.

• In the Premier League era (since 1992-93), Son Heung-min has been involved in more FA Cup goals than any other Tottenham player (26 – 14 goals, 12 assists). In that time, only Harry Kane and Jermain Defoe (15 each) have scored more in the competition for Spurs than their current captain.