Spurs 1-2 Aston Villa

The report in full...

Giovani Lo Celso – starting his first Premier League game in over two years – fired us ahead in the 22^nd minute after we missed a number of opportunities, but Villa levelled on the stroke of half-time through Pau Torres and took the win after Ollie Watkins struck just after the hour mark. The result sees us drop to fifth in the table as Villa climbed above us with this victory.

It always felt like it was going to be an entertaining contest and the early stages certainly didn’t disappoint with both sides creating good chances. Destiny Udogie blazed over when through on goal, Dejan Kulusevski crashed a shot against the post, Brennan Johnson’s rebound was cleared off the line, Torres headed wide at the other end when completely unmarked and Bryan Gil was denied by Emi Martinez – all inside the first eight minutes!

We were playing some lovely football at times, just a final ball preventing the goals from coming, however we did open the scoring in the 22^nd minute. Pedro Porro’s corner was cleared to the edge of the area and Lo Celso drilled a left-footed shot which flicked off Diego Carlos on its way past Martinez. It was the Argentine’s first Premier League goal since scoring against Manchester City in November, 2020.

Just two minutes later, Watkins headed home a Lucas Digne cross for what Villa thought was an equaliser, only for it to be ruled out for offside following a lengthy VAR check before we lost Rodrigo Bentancur to injury, the Uruguay international's first start for us following his recent comeback cut short as he was replaced by Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.

We kept mounting attack after attack and Kulusevski curled just wide on 35 minutes while Son had the ball in the net at the end of an outstanding move which started with Guglielmo Vicario, but the skipper had just gone too early on his run and it was disallowed for offside.

Despite a dominant first half though, we went in level at the break as Villa scored seven minutes into stoppage time, Douglas Luiz delivering a wonderful cross and Torres this time made sure to head past Vicario.

It was the visitors with the first clear chance of the second period, Vicario pushing away Leon Bailey’s 20-yard drive and fortunate to see the ball hit the post and rebound into his arms, but the goalkeeper couldn’t do anything to prevent Villa taking the lead in the 61^st minute. Watkins played the ball in to Youri Tielemans and took the return pass on the edge of the box before sliding it into the bottom corner.

The opportunities kept coming though, Pedro Porro’s half-volley bringing a smart save out of Martinez with Ben Davies heading the resulting corner just over, while at the other end, Vicario dived across to his left to push away Digne’s 25-yard free-kick and Watkins glanced a header just wide.

Then Martinez made two more fine stops, first keeping out Johnson’s poke goalwards and then tipping away Hojbjerg’s effort which was heading for the top corner as we kept plugging away for the equaliser. Villa were always a threat though and Vicario was there again to parry away Boubacar Kamara’s drive.

We thought we were level in the 85^th minute when Son tapped home after Pedro Porro had struck the far post but again, up went the assistant’s flag for offside. And when Emerson Royal’s glancing header went just wide deep into stoppage time, with it went our chance of salvaging a point.

In team news, Ange Postecoglou made four changes from the last game at Wolves as Udogie, Bentancur, Lo Celso and Bryan came in for Eric Dier, Pape Matar Sarr, Yves Bissouma and Hojbjerg.