Aston Villa has a good record in the capital lately, particularly since the arrival of Unai Emery. Still, something didn’t feel right going into yesterday’s game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
I am sure I am not alone when I say that I believe on our day, we are more than capable of beating anyone in the Premier League. The problem is, when we are off it, we are likely to concede goals and lots of them. Yesterday Villa came up against a Tottenham side who are unpredictable. As they proved this week against us and Manchester City in mid-week, they can also beat anyone, with ease on their day.
The goals-against column in the Premier League isn’t pretty reading for Aston Villa. They have now conceded 15 goals in 10 games and some of the mistakes being made, wouldn’t be made on a Sunday League pitch. Things need to improve at the back if we are to have any chance of competing for the top four come the end of the season.
It was a typical performance on the road from Aston Villa. Solid and compact (in the first half anyway) and look to counter-attack or take advantage of any set pieces that come our way.
The game wasn’t pretty but it was the visitors who took the lead just after the half-hour mark. Lucas Digne sent over a lovely cross from a corner, the ball appeared to miss everyone before deflecting off Rodrigo Bentancur forcing a save from Guglielmo Vicario but the Italian pushed the ball onto Morgan Rogers who was able to tap home for his third goal of the season.
Villa could have then doubled their lead before the break when Amadou Onana was denied by the woodwork from a header.
I don’t think anyone could have predicted what was about to unfold in the second half. It took just four minutes before the home side were level.
Son Heung-min received the ball on the wing and ran at Matty Cash before unleashing a beautiful cross into the box where Brennan Johnson arrived at the back post to pull the game level.
Villa appeared to take control of the game following the goal but the hosts were soon ahead.
The goal came when Villa tried to counter-attack but Ollie Watkins lost the ball on the halfway line, Tottenham attached Villa with pace and it eventually found Dejan Kulusevski who played a cute through ball past the Villa defence, allowing Dominic Solanke to dink the ball over Emi Martinez in the Villa goal.
It went from bad to worse four minutes later when Spurs struck again. Pape Matar Sarr was able to intercept a Pau Torres pass before sending Richarlison through, the Brazilian cut the ball across goal for Solanke to score his second of the afternoon.
The rout was complete late in extra time when James Maddison scored directly from a free-kick.
Unai Emery: “We have been consistent until today, but we will need more. It’s not enough, but we are still being in the top-seven positions and this is the first objective we can try to keep.
“Yes, of course, in the first half we didn’t concede a lot of chances, we didn’t concede a lot of opportunities.
“But in the second half, they took a step forward, clearly, and they scored with their first action. After that it was more difficult, but even like that, we were competing and we created chances.
“But we made some mistakes in transitions and they were alert to try to use them and they did it.”
Ange Postecoglou: “You know with Villa that they are always going to have a real strong performance because they are very, very consistent. They rarely have off days and you’ve got to be ready for that.
“I thought we had to match with them in the first half. We had to sort of draw on their energy and make them work really hard. Obviously we conceded a goal but I still felt like we made them work really hard in that first half.
“The thing with us is we’ve got another two or three gears in us and we keep going. We felt like we could really break them open in the second half if we just really stayed focused on making sure the football was up-tempo and there was intensity in the game.”
Aston Villa are back in Champions League action as they take on Club Brugge in Belgium on Wednesday. The Blauw-Zwart currently sit second in the Belgian Pro League.
Tottenham will head to Turkey on Thursday when they play Galatasaray.
