Tottenham 3 Aston Villa 1
For long periods of this contest Rémi Garde, shivering in the upper tier, must have wondered quite what he had let himself in for by accepting the manager’s brief at Aston Villa. His team appeared to have been eased out of this game early, Tottenham Hotspur almost sleepwalking into the ascendancy as they set about extending the Premier League’s longest current unbeaten run to 10 games and, in the process, rising to the cusp of the Champions League places. Even the crowd seemed lulled into the inevitability of it all.
Then, from nowhere, the visitors rallied to threaten the unlikeliest of recoveries. Jordan Ayew’s deflected goal 11 minutes from time offered hope and Rudy Gestede’s late header, the striker having risen above Hugo Lloris, probably should have forced parity. As it is, where there might have been utter despondency at the final whistle born of a seventh successive league defeat which was confirmed by Harry Kane’s fourth goal in two games deep into stoppage time, Villa departed feeling vaguely encouraged. They can approach the visit of Manchester City on Sunday with slightly more optimism.
Garde, freshly arrived by private jet from Lyon via Luton, had taken his seat flanked by Villa’s chief executive, Tom Fox, and the director of recruitment, Paddy Reilly. The latter might have felt compelled to explain why Kevin MacDonald’s final selection in his capacity as caretaker manager had included only one of the summer’s new arrivals – Joleon Lescott had been Tim Sherwood’s target, with Scott Sinclair having spent time at the club on loan last season – but, as it was, even this more established lineup’s deficiencies were exposed almost immediately. It took Spurs 144 seconds to deflate any optimism surrounding the Frenchman’s appointment. By the interval the game of catch-up already felt hopeless.
Tottenham did not have to play particularly well to prise Villa apart. This was certainly far from the fluent, attacking display that had seen Mauricio Pochettino's team thrash a more open Bournemouth in their previous match. But they still did enough to force themselves ahead against hesitant opposition. Danny Rose's early pass down the left for Mousa Dembélé had hardly been defence-splitting, but the Belgian held off Ciaran Clark as he wriggled infield and spat a shot which flew through Brad Guzan's legs and inside the near post. The efforts of both centre-half and goalkeeper were feeble. Garde raised his hand to his brow and tried, desperately, not to betray any reaction to the horrific nature of the concession.
Admittedly, his new team’s backline had been denied Micah Richards, sitting just behind the substitutes, after the captain admitted a Football Association misconduct charge earlier in the day following a post-match altercation in the tunnel after the defeat to Swansea on October 24th. Richards, who had been riled by a clash with the visitors’ Federico Fernández, was fined £10,000 on top of the one-match suspension. His presence was missed with Clark’s baptism back into the side instantly traumatic.
At least Villa were industrious in their efforts to resist a hammering, the game littered with niggling fouls and chances chiselled out of the mediocrity. Sinclair's burst away from Kyle Walker and Erik Lamela, then Eric Dier and Toby Alderweireld, did culminate in a rare shot which Hugo Lloris pushed away smartly, but the contest was a mishmash and further disrupted when Dembélé's flailing arm floored Ashley Westwood and forced him from the field.
Frustration was starting to swell among the locals when, in first-half stoppage time, Christian Eriksen wriggled free and liberated Rose down the left. The full-back's cross was nodded up by Lescott and the ball looped invitingly to Dele Alli, just inside the penalty area. The youngster, watched here by the England manager, Roy Hodgson, was permitted time to collect on his thigh and dispatch a shot on the volley which scuttled through the crowd and into the corner of the net. The body language of the coaches on the visitors' bench, who had been praying for a half-time whistle, was revealing.
The cushion invited Tottenham to prosper on the counter, their authority all too clear, with Eriksen probing from his position out on the left and Kane working tirelessly to unnerve Villa’s defence. Gestede’s introduction at the other end for the ineffective Gabriel Agbonlahor – the latter had mustered only eight touches up to half-time – offered a bit more brawn but little bite to the visitors’ front line.
Leandro Bacuna had actually shrugged Villa awake by curling a shot against Lloris’ post from distance. Spurs were still digesting that let off when the substitute Ryan Mason gave up possession too easily and Ayew fizzed in another attempt which deflected off Jan Vertonghen and beyond the Frenchman. Then came Kane’s reward, dispatched from Lamela’s centre, and relief. Spurs are fifth and rising.
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