After scraping past non league side Tamworth after extra time, Tottenham Hotspur were drawn against Premier League side Aston Villa in the fourth round of the FA Cup. We knew that the game would take place between the 7th and 10th of February, but without knowing which day.
Fans were particularly curious considering the Carabao Cup semi final second leg against Liverpool is to take place on Thursday, the 6th of February. It has now been confirmed that the tie with Villa is to take place on Sunday, the 9th of February - putting to rest any concerns that Spurs would have to play two days later. The game will be shown live on BBC One and on iPlayer for those in the UK.
Interestingly, and perhaps weirdly - the game at Villa will kick off at the extremely lesser spotted 17:35 slot, which has lead to a lot of confusion from both sets of fans. Some have wondered why the game couldn't be played on the Monday night slot, with the game set to take place < 72 hours after the Carabao Cup tie.
However, there is something else to consider. Given we saw Spurs pick up two points from three games against Galatasaray, Roma, and Rangers - they may well only finish in the play-off positions in the Europa League. If that is the case, they will play the first leg of their play-off tie on the 13th of February - three days after that said Monday.
Furthermore, Liverpool - the Carabao Cup opponents - play their game at 3pm, two 1/2 hours before, and with much more travelling. Albeit, that is caveated by the fact they have a much weaker opponent in Plymouth Argyle.
Back to the Europa League point - February could be even crazier than January if Spurs do have a play-off tie. They could play on the; 2nd, 6th, 9th, 13th, 16th, 20th, 22nd, and 26th. Eight games in 24 days. They would be scheduled to play Ipswich Town two days after their second leg, though ideally that would be moved to one of the non televised 14:00 Sunday slots.
Pretty safe to say that Spurs are going to need to go all out in the cups to salvage the season. As frustrating as the league form is, and there are some things that are still not excusable, the cup competitions are absolutely paramount at this point. With the current squad, Spurs cannot go full throttle in every competition, so the league becomes the least important one.