Tottenham eager to cement place at Group A summit

Tottenham Hotspur FC visit FC Twente seeking the victory that would guarantee them first place in Group A.

• The London club have performed impressively on their debut in the UEFA Champions League group stage and secured qualification with a Matchday 5 home win against SV Werder Bremen. Level on ten points with Inter, they lead the section thanks to their superior head-to-head record and need only match Inter's result at Bremen to secure first place.

• Twente's defeat at San Siro last time out ended their hopes of progress but they are assured third place and a UEFA Europa League berth. They will look to go out on a high with a first UEFA Champions League home win, following two draws at the FC Twente Stadion.

Match background
• Tottenham could do worse than follow the lead of their predecessors in the 1961/62 European Champion Clubs' Cup, who won 3-1 at first-round opponents Feyenoord on what was the club's first trip to the Netherlands. It remains Spurs' only away victory in Europe's elite competition; of their seven European Cup matches abroad, including three this season, five ended in defeat.

• Twente have a poor record against clubs from England with three draws and seven defeats – including their 4-1 reverse at White Hart Lane on Matchday 2.

• Tottenham's neighbours, Arsenal FC, were the last English side to visit Enschede and inflicted a 2-0 defeat on Twente in the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round. Sander Boschker, Theo Janssen and Wout Brama were in that Twente team while William Gallas, now a Tottenham player, scored one of Arsenal's goals and found the net again in their 4-0 second-leg success.

• Tottenham have an excellent record in the Netherlands, which reads W5 D1 L2.

• The Premier League club prevailed 1-0 in their last two matches in the Netherlands. They beat NEC Nijmegen through a Jamie O'Hara goal in the 2008/09 UEFA Cup group stage and, prior to that, won at PSV Eindhoven with a Dimitar Berbatov effort in the 2007/08 UEFA Cup round of 16 – although they ended the evening eliminated on penalties after a 1-1 aggregate draw.

• Spurs contested the 1973/74 UEFA Cup final against Feyenoord when a 2-2 home draw was followed by a 2-0 defeat in Rotterdam.

Team ties
• In his goalkeeping days, Twente coach Michel Preud'homme was in the R. Standard de Liège team that suffered a 4-0 UEFA Cup first round defeat at Manchester City FC in 1978/79. He was in the Belgium team beaten 1-0 by England in the last 16 of the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

• As manager of West Ham United FC, Harry Redknapp oversaw 1-0 home and away wins against SC Heerenveen in the 1999 UEFA Intertoto Cup.

• Rafael van der Vaart played for AFC Ajax from 1999 to 2005, winning two Eredivisie titles. He was a team-mate of Boschker during the Twente goalkeeper's one season at Ajax in 2003/04 and later in the Netherlands' 2010 World Cup squad.

• Van der Vaart played alongside Janssen and Denny Landzaat for the Netherlands in a 2006 friendly against the Republic of Ireland.

• Landzaat was at Wigan Athletic FC from 2006 to 2008, appearing in a 3-3 home draw with Spurs in April 2007 and a 4-0 away defeat in November that year.

• Heurelho Gomes won four straight Eredivisie titles at PSV from 2004 to 2008.

• Jermain Defoe put a hat-trick past Bulgaria's Nikolay Mihaylov in England's 4-0 UEFA EURO 2012 qualifying win at Wembley on 3 September. Mihaylov became a Liverpool FC player in 2007 but joined Twente on loan without making a first-team appearance at Anfield and made the move permanent this year.

• Giovani Dos Santos scored for Mexico in a 3-0 World Cup qualifying win away to Bryan Ruiz's Costa Rica in September 2009.