Lane stalemate is pick until teams are known 

APPARENTLY Tim Sherwood will be back in the dugout for Tottenham's Monday night clash against Sunderland at White Hart Lane, although of what use that information is I'm not sure.

When did the manager's decision whether to sit in the stands or the dugout become a major area of football analysis?

Will he be in the dugout? Or hogging the touchline and berating the ref? Or might he be sat in row Z trying to catch the ball after Roberto Soldado's attempts on goal? Actually, that last one's not fair - the Spaniard is out injured at the moment.

Until someone shows me some stats that show that teams play progressively worse the further away from the pitch that their manager sits, I won't be worrying about where the gaffer chooses to park his rear end.

I've made a few gags about Sherwood looking like he's about to hit someone as he fumes alongside the pitch but fair play to him, he has been having a laugh at himself this week.

He said: "I'll be on the touchline on Monday - I'll be knocking out as many people as I can."

It would be hard to get too angry at Sunderland boss Gus Poyet, wouldn't it?

I'm not particularly keen on Spurs at the moment but can't get too excited about the Black Cats either.

The Premier League came down lightly on Sunderland for them fielding an ineligible player and maybe Poyet will seek to take advantage of that by talking fellow Uruguayan Luis Suarez into playing up front against an injury-hit Spurs defence.

Unless he does that I can't see Sunderland getting much more than a draw, so that's my pick until I see the teams ....