Five’s season of live football continues this week with coverage of three clashes from round one of the 2008 UEFA Cup. Colin Murray presents all the action as Tottenham Hotspur head to Poland to take on Wisla Kraków, Belgian side Standard Liège host Everton and Portsmouth visit Portugal’s Vitória de Guimarães.

In the first of the featured games, Tottenham face a difficult away leg in Poland against Wisla Kraków. Spurs have made a lousy start in the Premiership this season, sitting second from bottom with one point in three games.

Tottenham were the subject of much highprofile transfer activity during the summer – but it was all in the wrong direction from the point of view of ambitious Spurs fans. The side has clearly yet to settle following the departure of star forwards Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov. To make up for their striker deficit, the club has signed Man Utd’s Fraizer Campbell on loan while Roman Pavlyuchenko has arrived from Spartak Moscow for a cool £14million.

Tottenham’s destination for this friendly is the 20,000-capacity Wisla Stadium in beautiful Kraków. Wisla Kraków have a proud history in the Polish top flight, having won the first division 11 times. They have developed something of a stranglehold on the league, winning it six times in the last ten years – most recently in 2008. With the team currently riding high at the top of the Polish league once again, Juande Ramos’s side will be hoping that they have done enough at White Hart Lane in the first leg to make this rematch a less nerve-racking affair.

The second game sees Everton travel to play Standard Liège at the Stade Maurice Dufrasne in Belgium. Everton have fared only a little better than Spurs in the Premier League so far this term, chalking up just one win in three games.

The Toffees’ biggest signing of the summer was 20-year-old midfielder Marouane Fellaini, bought from Standard Liège for a club record fee of £15million. Other new arrivals include Luis Saha from Manchester United and Ecuadorian midfielder Segundo Castillo on a year-long loan from Red Star Belgrade.

Fellaini will enjoy a sooner-than-expected return to his old club as Everton navigate this tricky away leg. Standard Liège are one of the most successful clubs in Belgium and are the current domestic champions. They narrowly missed out on entry to the Champions League this season after tangling with Everton’s biggest rivals, Liverpool, in two hard-fought qualifiers in August. Liverpool eventually scraped through 1-0 on aggregate thanks to a 118th-minute goal from Dirk Kuyt in the second leg. Liège’s energetic performances against the Premier League giants should provide plenty of food for thought for David Moyes and his players.

Also this week, Portsmouth play their second leg against Vitória de Guimarães at the Estádio D Afonso Henriques in Portugal. Like Everton, Portsmouth have bagged just three points in three games this term. Their most notable new recruit is Peter Crouch, signed for £11million from Liverpool. The gangly forward returns to his former club after six years away. Other new faces include defender Younes Kaboul from Tottenham and striker Ben Sahar on loan from Chelsea.

Vitória finished third in the Portugese Superliga at the last time of asking. The side have bounced in and out of the top flight in the last few years, having endured a spell in the second division in 2006-7. The club made their debut in the Champions League this season, losing 2-1 on aggregate against the Swiss champions Basel in the first qualifying round. Vitória will certainly be keen for a second shot at European glory by progressing into the next round of the UEFA Cup at Portsmouth’s expense.