Hello and welcome to live text commentary as the Premier League weekend kicks off. We start at the Stadium of Light where Sunderland host Tottenham.

Away we go! Spurs in dark blue shirts, Sunderland in their familiar red and white.

Spurs to kick this one off.

Where are my manners? I'm Mark Patterson, and I'll be steering you through this game. You can tweet me your thoughts and predictions if you like.

But on the flip side, this from Infostrada - Tottenham have won just one of their last seven Premier League visits to the Stadium of Light (W1 D3 L3).

A good stat from Opta - Spurs have suffered only two defeats in their last 19 Premier League games in the month of December (W11 D6 L2)

Andre Villas-Boas on Gareth Bale: "He is up there with the best (in the world). He is showing tremendous skills and he is improving every day - he is such a young player - and helping the team. He is one of our major assets. You always expect that the team can make an individual even better. The team changes so much from one year to another, and as he keeps learning, he will feel even better and probably his performances will improve."

Martin O'Neill on Danny Rose: "Spurs are up here this weekend and there might be a chance for some talks or at least a conversation. At this moment we just have to play it by ear and enjoy having Rose on Wearside while it lasts. We have an agreement in place we would be given notice if Spurs wanted to recall him. It is decent enough notice – something like two weeks – so we would have chance to find a replacement. If Tottenham do recall him, there is really nothing we can do about that."

Bale's performances have made Real Madrid sit up and take notice apparently - he was on the front page of Spanish paper Marca yesterday with the headline: PRIORITY BALE

Bit of a change up in defence for Spurs, with AVB swapping out Gallas and Vertonghen for Caulker and Dawson, but his midfield and attack are unchanged in a 4-4-2 formation led by Defoe and Adebayor. For Sunderland O'Shea comes back in for Danny Rose, but otherwise it's the same starting XI that won at home on Boxing Day.

SUNDERLAND: Mignolet; Gardner, Kilgallon, O'Shea, Cuellar; Larsson, Colback, Johnson, McClean; Sessegnon, Fletcher - subs - Campbell, Wickham, McFadden, Vaughan, Dong-won, Bramble, Westwood /// TOTTENHAM: Lloris, Walker, Caulker, Dawson, Naughton, Lennon, Dembele, Sandro, Bale, Adebayor, Defoe - subs - Friedel, Vertonghen, Huddlestone, Livermore, Parker, Dempsey, Sigurdsson

A bit of a debate stirred up last night as we selected our top 10 Premier League goals of 2012. Watch (if you're in the UK) and have your say

Spurs currently sit fourth in the table after trouncing Aston Villa on Boxing Day - while Sunderland are also in good form having defeated champions Manchester City earlier that same day.