Aston Villa (Away) 13.05.2023

Too often Tottenham were caught in the high-line offside trap that Villa set and there was not enough ingenuity in the team to break through it.  Only when Ryan Mason made the substitutions that brought Yves Bissouma and Dejan Kulusevski into play did we look anything like a side who could cause any problems.  It was a slack piece of defensive play that gave Villa their first goal and the second came from a free-kick, needlessly conceded by Cristian Romero.

An early indication of how Tottenham’s afternoon was going to go came inside the first couple of minutes when Clement Lenglet clipped a ball over the top for Richarlison to get behind the Villa defence, but his shot went over the top with only Martinez to beat, with the offside flag going up late as usual.  However, with seven minutes gone, Spurs lost the ball when Forster cleared long and it was moved forward by Villa to Ramsey, who spread the ball right to Baily.  He took on Davies in the box and pulled the ball back as Ramsey continued his run into the area and steered the ball inside Forster’s near post to give the home side an early advantage.  Romero dived into a challenge on Watkins as the ball was played forward in the move, allowing him to turn it on to Ramsey and then Porro failed to track the scorer’s run from deep.

Letting in that early goal made it harder to get anything out of another match.  Whoever takes charge of the team will need to sort out our lack of first half effectiveness, as it has cost us so many points this season and where Spurs have been decent away from home for a few seasons now, this one has been poor, with our last away win at Preston and in the Premier League at Bournemouth in October.  That may be why we are now desperately hanging on for a sniff of European football next season. 

Villa had won a few corners and looked to play the ball in low to the near post trying to flick it on to the back post, but after the goal they tried a short corner routine that switched play to the other side, where McGinn skewed his cross over the goal.  The midfielder was then involved again, but it was as he was running back towards his own goal, barging Son down as he looked to break away, then showing dissent when the ref gave a free-kick.

Around the middl eof the half, Tottenham got some control on the game with Son hitting the post after running form an offside position and then nearly getting onto Kane’s delicate ball looking for him, but it was intercepted.  Just after the half hour, Spurs were grateful for Fraser Forster’s low stop as Bailey tried to turn in a low ball from Watkins on the left and the Spurs keeper got down and got a hand to it to keep it out.  Shortly after, Emerson Royal made a well-timed tackle in the box to stop any further damage, followed by another on Watkins, which had a quick VAR check before it was ruled as good.  After that Spurs were having trouble getting out of their own half, with Villa’s press much more co-ordinated that our own, which allowed the Villains to ease the ball out from the back.

Both sets of fans seemed strangely quiet, but the home support came alive when Moreno played a first-time cross from the left that Watkins could only just get a touch to that took the ball wide, when a firmer header would have hit the net.  They hit the bar with two minutes to go to half-time when Skipp was dispossessed in midfield and Ramsey’s square pass from the  left allowed Buendia a free shot that cannoned out off the angle of post and bar.

Straight after half-time, Buendia looked to put Ramsey away into the left side of the box, but a perfect sliding challenge by Romero won the ball cleanly out for a corner.  From it, Konsa dragged down Skipp in the box, allowing the ball to traverse the area to Young at the far post, but he managed to hit the ball square to almost where it had come from.  McGinn flashed a shot well wide and Buendia forced Forster to dive to his right to push a shot aside, then Hojbjerg micked the ball of Luiz as he dwelt on the ball ten yards outside his own box and the ball ran forward to Kane, who took the ball into the box, but hit Martinez with his shot on 50 minutes.

Bissouma and Kulusevski came on for Richarlison and Skipp, with the midfielder slipping Son through to finish off target and he had been off-side anyway and then the winger shrugged off Moreno to cut back from the dead-ball line and try to curl  the ball in at the far post, but it just missed Harry Kane and the post too.  The Tottenham fans started to make themselves heard as we started to play little triangles of passes to work our way around the Villa players, but in the 70th minute, Romero went into the back of Watkins on the edge of the D when the Villa man had his back to goal and a free-kick was given.  From it, Luiz lifted the ball over the wall and into the net to Forster’s left and although he got a hand to it, he couldn’t keep it out. 

Villa fans wanted a penalty when Mings won a header at a free-kick and planted it against Kane’s thigh in the box, .but when Spurs won a corner at the other end, it went straight into the keeper’s hands.  Most of our others failed to beat the first man at the near post, so at least it achieved that.  At last Tottenham beat the offside trap and Kane was put into the box by Kulusevski’s pass.  He took a touch and was taken down by the obnoxious Martinez, who immediately started waving an imaginary yellow card insinuating that Harry had dived.  A corner was given by the ref.  It took an age for VAR to suggest that the referee look at it, but he pointed to the spot and the Villa keeper started playing his mind games.  As Villa players crowded around the man in the middle and Young was booked for dissent, Kane kept calm and fired the ball to Martinez’s left with the keeper embarrassingly diving the other way,  So, it was a lifeline, probably one Spurs didn’t really deserve, but with eight minutes of added time to go, it was now going to be an interesting finish.

Kulusevski skied a shot from outside the D and with almost the last kick of the match, Romero’s long through ball slipped the ball into Martinez’s bottom left corner from just outside the box, but, guess what … he was offside.  And that was that.

Too often you could see Tottenham players with their hands outstretched as they had no options to pass too.  Things improved with the subs coming on, but we were soon 0-2 down and perhaps the biggest benefit was the performance of Bissouma, who looked more like the player he was before we signed him and have failed to see enough of this season.  Playing with a nominal three up front, we seemed to miss out in midfield at a certain extent, with little link-up play other than Kane or Son having to drop deep and it will be a conundrum that someone has to solve when it comes to where does Richarlison fit into the line-up.  It’s not that he is lacking effort, but where he is best deployed.

So with our last two matches being Brentford at home next week and then away at Leeds, who will have something to play for, there is only really pride to play for.  The only benefit of Kane’s penalty conversion was that it didn’t allow Villa to pull level with us on goal difference, but Brighton have three games in hand, so you would imagine they will finish above us.

Whatever happens, it is an appalling downturn in events since we went into the World Cup in fourth place in November.

Steve Dawkins

• Harry Kane equalled a Premier League record for scoring in 24 different matches in a season.