JAMIE O’Hara is in with a shock chance of facing former club Spurs at White Hart Lane next weekend.

The play-maker underwent a hernia operation last month and has missed the last five games.

He will be back to face Villa on August 21st but said today: “It’s gone amazingly well and, hopefully, I’ll be looking to get back in and to be involved for the Tottenham game. That’s what we are aiming for.

“I’ve been doing some running with Tony Daley all week and I feel great.

“I had to get it sorted out in the end because I’ve been struggling with it massively and had only been playing at around 80 per cent.

“And, after games, I couldn’t train or get around how I wanted to so now I’m hoping that the problem has been solved.

“Sports hernias, like the one that I had, come and go. I had a couple of injections that settled it down for a few weeks and played. But then it came back.

“Trying to play through those games was tough and gradually it got worse and worse until, in the end, before the home fixtures against Stoke and Norwich, it got to the point where I knew that I couldn’t get around the park properly.

“That would have been detrimental to the team and everyone else so I thought it was time to get it sorted out.”

O’Hara is no stranger to surgery having had two screws, a rod inserted into his back and bone marrow taken out of my hip.