THE summer break is always an interesting time for Spurs fans. We do after all like a transitional season, a managerial upheaval and a final piece of the jigsaw. But even by our lofty standards this has been a funny old summer so far. We ve sold a star st

THE summer break is always an interesting time for Spurs fans. We do after all like a transitional season, a managerial upheaval and a final piece of the jigsaw. But even by our lofty standards this has been a funny old summer so far.

We've sold a star striker - no, not the one who we all knew was going to Old Trafford, the one who we all knew was going nowhere.

We'll recognise Sunderland's team better than our own next season. We've upset Sir Alex Ferguson by daring to suggest that he may have been a bit naughty in pursuing Dimitar Berbatov.

We'll be fielding every attacking midfielder under the sun next season. And somewhere in Europe there are maybe two or three players angry at their agents for not managing to get them linked with a move to the Lane. A lively few months indeed.

And even now, a couple of days before the big kick off, Spurs are still looking a bit of an unknown quantity.

Back when Luka Modric was captured, seemingly an age ago, it appeared we would be doing our transfer business nice and early. But the expected big name summer merry-go-round never materialised.

It leaves plenty of things up in the air. Will there be a striker to replace Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe? And what of Berbatov?

Is there going to be a ball-winner to do some of the donkey work for all the flair players? Not for the first time it looks like we won't know for sure where we are going until the window closes at the end of the month, which I'm sure isn't the way Juande Ramos would have wanted things.

The coach though has had a full pre-season with most of the squad, and based on the reports from the training camp he didn't waste the opportunity to work them hard. If there was a suspicion at the start of last season that the players were undercooked, this time around they look lean and mean, and on the evidence of the Feyenoord tournament, a useful little football machine.

Darren Bent looks to have been the main beneficiary of the summer shenanigans, having been full of goals. At the other end, the worry has been the fleeting glimpses of Ledley King and Jonathan Woodgate, hopefully due to them being wrapped in cotton wool rather than a more sinister problem.

So how will we do?

On the face of it we look exciting - plenty of quality footballers playing the Ramos way only bodes well.

But with probably eight or nine changes - and more to come - from the opening day of last season it will be a question of how well we settle. It'll be exciting and unpredictable - quintessentially Spurs in fact.