Analysis | Andy Brassell's bitesize European preview | AZ Alkmaar, Round of 16

One of the voices of European football on talkSPORT and Sky Sports, well known for The Football Ramble podcast, an author and writer for The Guardian - and a regular contributor here at Spurs for almost 10 years - Andy Brassell gives us a short, sharp view of our opposition ahead of every UEFA Europa League match this season.

After the eight-match league phase, we're into the knockout stage of the competition and the Round of 16 - where we face a team we played in the league phase! Eredivisie side AZ Alkmaar, who we beat 1-0 in Matchday 3, provide the opposition over the two legs, starting on Thursday evening (5.45pm UK) at the AFAS Stadion in Alkmaar, just north of Amsterdam.

AZ Alkmaar (Netherlands)

Manager - Maarten Martens
Domestic form - 6th in Holland's Eredivisie, just three points adrift off Utrecht in third
Europa League form - 19th in the league phase (W3 D2 L3) - beat Galatasaray 6-3 on aggregate (4-2 H; 2-2 A) in the play-off round

Andy Brassell...

"The key point to make is since they played Spurs in October, when they were on the back end of quite a poor run - indeed, Spurs was their fifth defeat in a row - AZ have gone from strength to strength. Their league form is much better, they beat Roma and Galatasaray in the Europa League, and they are also in the Dutch Cup (KNVB Cup) Final against Go Ahead Eagles, who managed to beat PSV twice in a week, once in the league and to reach the final. They are quite reliant on Troy Parrott for goals, he already has 12 in the Eredivisie this season, but they just don’t get beaten very often. Now they have these two games against Spurs, with no league game in between - that’s worth noting as well. They’ll have a weekend off between these two legs, then they face Ajax the weekend after. If you look at where they are at the moment, sixth, just one point off Feyenoord in fourth, and only three points off Utrecht in third... now, even if there are good teams directly above them (FC Twente are fifth) that says to me that top three or four is not to be ruled out. They are a good team, well coached, they're adventurous, very good on the counter attack and we saw that particularly against Galatasaray. They won the first leg 4-1 after Galatasaray went down to 10 men, but the away leg - and face it, no-one likes going to Galatasaray away - they did a really good job, drew 2-2, could have won quite easily and scored more than the two goals they actually registered. So, you know, we're talking about them getting goals against really good teams - at the start of the year they drew 2-2 at PSV before PSV fell off. They will be adventurous, and I think they will feel better about themselves than they did when they were coming into that first game against Spurs back in the autumn. So, even if Spurs have had a look at them, they're a little bit more dangerous than that game would have suggested and, to be fair, I thought they played quite well in that game as well. It’s all set up for an interesting tie."