It would be fair to say that the goalkeeping situation has been one of the most talked about things at White Hart Lane over recent months and Andre Villas-Boas has continued to fuel the topic by making several open-ended comments about it. Even though he decided to introduce Hugo Lloris for the club’s last Premier League game, AVB insists that he is yet to make a decision on whether or not the big money signing will manage to keep Brad Friedel out of the team for a second fixture in succession.

Despite joining the club in a deal that could be worth up to £11.8m, Lloris was kept out of the team for league fixtures for the first few weeks of the season. This came as no surprise to some Spurs fans, who felt that veteran Brad Friedel fully deserved his place following years of dedicated service. However, the move certainly didn’t go down well in France, with Lloris and his national team manager, Didier Deschamps, indicating to the press that the situation was far from ideal.

Following on from that, Villas-Boas made the shock decision to select Lloris for the most recent top flight game against Aston Villa. The move meant that Friedel’s incredible record of 310 consecutive Premiership appearances came to an end, even though he had barely put a foot wrong.

It looks as though he has a chance of returning quicker than he first thought though. Ahead of Saturday’s game against Chelsea, AVB said, “They compete for a position. In the end, we have made Brad the No. 1 for the beginning of the season and we still see Brad as No. 1, a player who has been tremendous in goal for us. We respect that. Hugo has been tremendous for us in exactly the same manner. It is obviously a decision I have to take, which I will take [on Friday] and in the future. So competition will continue between the two. The decision will be left before the game.”