Sonny outlook

Despite the trials and tribulations - alright, outright depression - of exiting both domestic cup competitions in two consecutive games at the end of the month, there is still good reason to be positive about our outlook, which remains sunny, or should I say "Sonny"!

Despite his enforced absence due to involvement in the Asian Cup, Son started 5 of the 8 games we played this month and scored three goals, the most significant of which was the equaliser against Watford. Also, despite that absence, Son came close to being our player of the month for a second successive month.

Son is back, and whilst we have to manage another month without Harry Kane and Dele Alli, both of whom were lost this month to injury, we have improved our hold on third place and remain in good position to achieve manager Mauricio Pochettino's objective of bringing Champions League football to the new stadium next season. (Maybe even yet before the end of the current campaign)

Toby Alderweireld was only fractionally behind Son with consistent and effective defensive displays in 6 of our games. Toby was rested for the Tranmere and Crystal Palace FA Cup games. Danny Rose only started four of our 8 games, but was marked consistently highly by Spurs Odyssey voters, winning the man of the match vote when he replaced Ben Davies in the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final at Chelsea. Danny's starts were in the wins at Cardiff, at home to Chelsea in the first leg of that semi-final, and the wins against Fulham and Watford.

Our top goalscorer this month was Fernando Llorente. Okay, so three of his five goals were scored in our record away win at Tranmere, but he also scored the goal that took the Chelsea game to penalties, and the winner against Watford. Fernando appeared in all our games this month, making five starts, more than he has in any previous month since being with Spurs.

Harry Winks has established himself as a first choice midfielder now that Mousa Dembele has departed to Guangzhou in China, and scored his first goal since 19th November 2016 against West Ham. This one was more important as it was scored literally in the dying seconds at Craven Cottage!

Once again there were no transfer window acquisitions, just the sale of Dembele (reported at £11 million) and Development Squad full back Jaden Brown (to Huddersfield) plus outgoing loans of Georges-Kevin Nkoudou (Monaco), Kazaiah Sterling (Sunderand) and Anthony Georgiou (Levante).

Davinson Sanchez collected 3 yellow cards this month, making a total of 5, and out of proportion to his history of bookings.

The win at Fulham made it a record 11 Premier League wins from 13 such games this season. The club record of 16 away wins was in the Double Season with Bill Nicholson at the helm. Last Saturday would have been the great man's 100th birthday. It's a shame we couldn't make Cup progress in his memory.

Harry Kane, who also managed to score 3 goals in January, was voted England men's Player of the Year for the second successive year. There has been a video posted on Twitter by Kane himself, showing that he is working hard to regain fitness as soon as possible. The sooner the better, and that goes for Dele too!

Thanks to our FA Cup exit, we have just five games to play in February, which include the Round of 16 Champions League game at home to high-flying Borussia Dortmund, and an end of the month return to Stamford Bridge for Premier League action. Let's make sure we put 6 points on the board at home to Newcastle and Leicester, and also that plenty of Spurs fans turn up at Wembley to cheer on their side.

· Review the 2018-19 Premier League season here

Don't forget to check out the players' current figures re. appearances, cards, goals scored and accumulated ratings to date at the bottom of this page.

...if you want to read reports of the matches played during this season, then links are on the Spurs Odyssey Fixtures/Reports page here. By working your way back through the previous month's figures, you can review the performances over the last 18 years!