Juande will get it right, says Pulis

The Stoke boss also watched Spurs's 2-0 defeat at Portsmouth as well as Hull's 1-0 win at White Hart Lane two weeks ago and the Welshman believes his opponents will soon click into gear although he admits they have struggled to cope with the departures of Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov. Pulis said: "They have sold the players who were the difference last year. Taking away the goals of Keane and Berbatov has been a massive blow for them.

"I thought Juande was a very nice person when we met and he is clearly a very experienced manager, who has been around the block a few times.

"No manager likes to see any other manager get the sack and it is no different with Juande. The Spurs directors made a bold decision to go for him last season, because Martin Jol was a very popular manager.

"They have been unfortunate to lose some of the games they have lost. They are struggling a bit for confidence and I am just hoping they will not turn up on Sunday and find their stride.

"You look at their squad and there is quality throughout. Looking at the players they have, I can't see them being down at the bottom too much longer."

Worryingly for Spurs, not everyone shares Pulis's optimism about their prospects. Former England Under-21 coach Peter Taylor, who played in the last Tottenham side to be relegated at the end of the 1976-77 season, fears for his old club.

Taylor, who was at Spurs from 1976 until 1980, believes that the depth of quality in the top flight makes Spurs's task of escaping the bottom three an extremely difficult one.

The 55-year-old said: "I am a bit nervous for Tottenham, because I don't think they have enough leaders like [former players] Steve Perryman or Dave Mackay to help them when the team are low.

"The division is stronger now than it was when the Tottenham team I played in were relegated. Apart from the top four, any team will struggle if they are not performing.

"Spurs can go down this season, because of the strength of the Premier League. If their players all lived up to their potential, there would be no problem but that is not the case at the moment.

"Spurs do not seem to be right. With Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov all leaving this year, they have seen about 70 goals per season leaving the club. Letting players like that go would really concern me.

"It is a big worry, because it means they are not going to score enough goals. The new strikers have to start doing well straight away and I would be nervous if I were the manager."

With Roman Pavlyuchenko, who is out with an ankle injury, struggling to settle, and on-loan Fraizer Campbell still to win over Ramos, much depends on Darren Bent. The former Ipswich striker, signed for £16.5million from Charlton in the summer of 2007, set himself a target of 30 goals for the season.

So far it is three down, 27 to go for a player who still does not look in the same class as Berbatov, Keane or Defoe.

Bent, 24, got his three goals in successive matches against Chelsea, Aston Villa and Wisla Krakow but he has not scored since 18 September. Former Spurs defender Graham Roberts, who won two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup with the club in the 1980s, believes it is time for Bent to prove his worth.

Roberts said: "Darren talked about scoring 30 goals but now he has to stand up and be counted. Get out there, be a man and do the job. It is a crisis time for Spurs at the moment.

"They need Ledley King to play in the league matches, because he is a leader and that is what Jonathan Woodgate needs to be, too."

Ramos will also hope that playmaker Modric, who scored for Croatia in their 4-0 victory over Andorra in midweek, can start to show the form which persuaded Spurs to pay Dinamo Zagreb £16.5m for him in the summer.

Modric is expected to retain his place in the team and skipper King should also play having had two weeks to rest his problematic knee.