November certainly told us something!

When we saw the fixture list at the start of the season, we always knew that November was going to be difficult. Our three Premier League fixtures were all London Derbies, two of which were our toughest such away games at The Emirates and Stamford Bridge. Add to those games the two Champions League Group E fixtures, I think we all knew the shape of our season to come would be moulded by these five games.

We had to play all of those games without Toby Alderweireld and Erik Lamela. Everyone recognised the value of Alderweireld to our team, but not all realised just how essential Lamela is to our combative midfield and our attacking pressing style. The return of these two key players is essential, and I hope to see them this coming week-end.

Three losses have hurt our prospects badly. We are out of the Champions League, and need a win or draw next week against CSKA at Wembley to at least continue a European campaign, if "only" in the Europa League. Many Spurs fans hate this competition, but it is now a path to The Champions League, although to win the competition will be very difficult. The Premier league top four have now opened up a little gap, and it is up to us to do well in our "winnable" December games to maintain the pressure before we face Chelsea again on January 4th.

I prepared a "list of shame" following our defeat at Stamford Bridge which shows all the teams who have managed a win at Chelsea during the nearly 27 years now in which Spurs have failed. It doesn't make good reading.

We also learnt this month just how important Harry Kane is to our goal-scoring prospects, even if three of his four goals this month were penalties. Harry was under pressure to score each time, and he didn't let us down here. Unfortunately, other prospective goalscorers let us down. Son Heung-min's dazzling September proved to be a brief illustration of what he can do, although in fairness, Son had everything to do with our late, late win at home to West Ham, with one assist for Harry's equaliser, and a penalty awarded for the winner.

Vincent Janssen has been involved in every game so far, but has yet to score a goal in open play. Important players such as Eric Dier, Dele Alli, Mousa Dembele and Christian Eriksen have yet to hit the good form they showed last season. Sissoko could cost us a massive fee (being paid in instalments), but has been a big disappointment, not least in a dismal performance at Wembley against Bayer Leverkusen.

Better news comes in the general form and consistency of our defenders, with Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen, Victor Wanyama, and first choice full backs Kyle Walker and Danny Rose in great form. Harry Winks has also been involved in every game this month, and scored our first goal against West Ham on his first Premier league start. Winks "looks after the ball" well and has justified manager Mauricio Pochettino's faith

Hugo Lloris was our player of the month, thanks largely to a stupendous performance (with one world class save) in Monaco. Toby Alderweireld still leads the overall player performances' table despite his enforced absence, and players such as Lloris, Walker, Rose, Vertonghen, and Wanyama are all in contention at this time.

· Review the 2016-17 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 16 years!