Aston Villa 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur: Premier League – as it happened
|
Version 0 of 1. 5.56pm GMT17:56 As Kane milks the applause, Villa are left to contemplate their sixth defeat in a row, and it all turned on the red card, with Benteke’s daftness causing the Villa side, who were the better team until that point, to go south somewhat. A stroke of luck and a bit of oomph from Harry Kane gets Pochettino off the hook for now. 5.54pm GMT17:54 Full-time: Aston Villa 1-2 Spurs And that’s that. Spurs, out of jail. 5.54pm GMT17:54 90 mins + 7: We’re still playing. Lowton aims for ‘The Mixer.’ 5.53pm GMT17:53 90 mins + 6: We’re still playing. Kane gets the ball on the right and takes it straight to the corner. He then falls over under a vague challenge. Textbook. 5.52pm GMT17:52 90 mins + 4: Missed Kieran Richardson coming on a few minutes ago, for those that care. Sorry Mr and Mrs Richardson. He replaced Weimann. 5.50pm GMT17:50 90 mins + 3: Lambert tries to salvage something by chucking Darren Bent on, for Cissokho. He waves some fingers at someone as if to suggest a formation of some description. Probably won’t matter much at this stage, Paul. 5.48pm GMT17:48 90 mins + 1: Proof there, that after the Spurs fans were calling for Kane all game, that we don’t really need managers and all decisions should be made according to how loudly the crowd are clamouring for something. 5.47pm GMT17:47 90 mins: Kane lines the free-kick up, using the Juninho/Ronaldo/Bale technique, and it gets a big deflection off the wall and leaves Guzan waving. 5.46pm GMT17:46 GOAL! Aston Villa 1-2 Spurs (Kane 90) Woof! 5.45pm GMT17:45 88 mins: “I’m not sure what was the more surprising event,” ponders John Tumbridge. “A spurs corner beating the first man or Spurs scoring from a corner.” They have another set-piece now, in the shape of a free-kick just outside the box, after Sanchez gets a yellow for fouling Townsend. 5.43pm GMT17:43 86 mins: Eesh, Villa nearly retake the lead straight away. Agbonlahor streaks away down the right and is initially all alone, but eventually a few teammates catch up with him. He drags the ball low and behind a few defenders, finding Cissokho on the edge of the box, but his powerful left-footed shot goes just wide of the post and hits the stanchion behind the net. 5.42pm GMT17:42 84 mins: Well, that sort of came from nowhere. Spurs win a corner on the right, which Lamela puts deep to the far post. Everyone seems to miss it, and it drops directly onto Chadli’s left boot and he sidefoots it into the net. 5.41pm GMT17:41 GOAL! Aston Villa 1-1 Spurs (Chadli 84) And we’re level. 5.40pm GMT17:40 83 mins: Kane slips in Rose on the left of the area with a neat pass, but Weimann chases back with him, although he flirts with trouble by seemingly holding onto his man. No foul given, and the ball is cleared. 5.38pm GMT17:38 81 mins: Desperate stuff from Rose, who miscontrols a ball on the left and, when Weimann nips the ball off him, shoves the Villa man to the floor like a school bully pushing a nerd into a puddle. 5.37pm GMT17:37 80 mins: Chadli gets a yellow card for a scything foul on Westwood. Some loud and cross ladies and gentlemen in the crowd wanted red, but that wasn’t going to happen. 5.34pm GMT17:34 77 mins: For what is perhaps the first time in his career Townsend cuts in from the right and passes rather than attempting a wild shot, but his efforts are in vain as Lamela slides a pass straight through the Villa defence...and straight out for a goal-kick. 5.32pm GMT17:32 75 mins: Kane - head of the ‘Whiff of an estate agent about him’ club - breaks into the box on the left but sort of rolls his foot over the attempted cross, and thus can’t get any power on it. 5.31pm GMT17:31 74 mins: And here’s that change for Villa. It’s not Weimann, but N’Zogbia who makes way for Agbonlahor. 5.30pm GMT17:30 73 mins: Change for Spurs - Capoue is off, Andros Townsend on. Bold move from Pochettino, with only Mason as a proper centre-mid on the pitch now. 5.28pm GMT17:28 72 mins: Adam Levine (is that the bloke from Maroon 5?) writes: “The wonders of modern technology mean that I am able to enjoy (?) this game in an aluminium tube currently over Greenland on my way from Heathrow to Dallas. Having inserted enough useless peripheral information to ensure that you print this mail, I just want to make the point, as other contributors have already indicated, that supporting Spurs has basically been Groundhog Day for the past 10 years. In that time the players have naturally changed, managers have come and gone (and how) and the one and only constant overseeing this persistent stream of endless mediocrity is Daniel Levy. I personally have never forgiven him for the way he treated Martin Jol but that seems indicative of the way the club has been run for the past decade: no strategy, no vision, just endless knee-jerk reactions leading to poor management decisions. In any other line of business Levy would have been given his P45 years ago but I guess as long as Tottenham Hotspurs plc is in the black he keeps his job.” 5.27pm GMT17:27 70 mins: Weimann is an angry young man at present. He very clearly takes out Mason right on the touchline, then flips at the linesman as the foul is given. Yellow card, and with Gabby Agbonlahor waiting to come on, it might be the young Austrian who is removed. 5.26pm GMT17:26 69 mins: Incidentally, in all that stramash over the red card Lamela was doing everything he could to get Benteke sent off, waving the imaginary card and so forth. High up the list of ‘Things We Don’t Like To See’. 5.24pm GMT17:24 67 mins: Despite being down to ten, Villa try to double their lead straight away with Weimann, who cuts in from the right and his shot is deflected very clearly as it loops wide, but for reasons passing understanding a goal-kick is given. 5.23pm GMT17:23 RED CARD - Benteke (65) 65 mins: FIGHT! I’ll level with you, I don’t really know what happened there, after an off-the-ball incident involving the big Belgian and a number of...oh, there it is. After a couple of robust challenges, the Villa striker put his hand in the face of Mason, and sort of pushed him away. Soft in the extreme. 5.21pm GMT17:21 63 mins: Spurs almost get in after Kane feeds Soldado, who in turn flips a pass towards Chadli, but Vlaar stomps across to cut out the attack. Chadli has a slightly odd upright running style, looking half like Michael Johnson and half like a gallimimus from Jurassic Park. 5.19pm GMT17:19 62 mins: “Is Richard Wood a Villa fan?” asks Matt Dony. “Does he really go into a game against Everton thinking, ‘Well, we’re definitely going to lose this. No point in hoping for anything else?’ Or even a game against Liverpool? (Spoken as a Liverpool fan.) Supporting a football team is, of course, all about the despair and tragedy (Glory-seekers need not apply), but come on, any team can beat any team on any given day. Don’t look at a run of four or five fixtures and expect no points, no matter who they’re against.” 5.18pm GMT17:18 60 mins: Eesh, spicy challenge from Vertonghen, sort of going in with two feet on Ashely Westwood but not really with any force, and he sort of got the ball as well. Assorted players surround the ref, but a yellow card is the verdict. 5.16pm GMT17:16 59 mins: And from the corner, Kane is the man who gets there first. His header goes straight at Guzan, but at least he looks a little lively. 5.14pm GMT17:14 58 mins: And here comes Kane - on for Adebayor, which is a little harsh on the Togo forward. He’s not been much good, but he’s provided more threat than Soldado. Kane provides some threat immediately, latching onto a Soldado pass and firing the cross at Guzan, who shovels it behind. Updated at 5.15pm GMT 5.13pm GMT17:13 56 mins: ‘We want Levy out,’ sing the Spurs fans, apparently. Harry Kane is about to come on. 5.12pm GMT17:12 55 mins: Cissokho advances from more or less the halfway line to the left corner of the box without being challenged. Perhaps confused with all this time and space, he shoots directly into Rose’s shins. Updated at 5.13pm GMT 5.10pm GMT17:10 54 mins: Lou Roper’s been back on, showing that Spurs being rubbish is at least comforting for some: “Watching Spurs does afford a crumb of schadenfreude to the Liverpool supporter: at least one allegedly half-decent team actually plays worse than we do. I would be even happier with them if they would indicate a willingness to add Joe Allen to their motley collection of midfielders.” 5.09pm GMT17:09 52 mins: Japes! Some slapstick in the Villa area now, as Guzan spills a simple low cross from Chadli straight to Adebayor, but the striker can’t quite bundle it towards goal and it eventually cannons off him and out for a goal-kick. That one should’ve been soundtracked with a tube and swanee whistle. 5.06pm GMT17:06 49 mins: Villa attack down the left and in a rare moment of defensive competence Rose glides over to prevent the danger from escalating into something more...well, dangerous. 5.05pm GMT17:05 48 mins: Jeremy Dresner, who sounds as maudlin as you might expect for a Spurs fan, writes: “My wife just said she ‘doesn’t know the team anymore.’ And it struck a chord. Van der Vaart, Parker, Modric, Sandro and Bale: this a midfield, she knew this lot. All Spurs fans loved this lot. This team not only had more skill, character and fight but more success. “If the new lot are supposed to be the Beatles then they play like a stoned campfire writing session.” 5.03pm GMT17:03 46 mins: Spurs get the second 45 underway, and Charles Antaki was a fan of the Moore/pubs ad: “The Martin Peters lookalike was surely Terence Stamp, supporting Michael Caine in the starring role, with Rita Tushingham as The Wife. Possibly the fourth member of the cast was Jean Shrimpton. Excellent British thesp action all round.” 5.01pm GMT17:01 Change ahoy for Spurs - Erik Lamela is set to come on, replacing Christian Eriksen, although frankly it could have been for anyone. 4.58pm GMT16:58 There’s just been an advert on TV for beer. Not any one particular brand of beer, just ‘beer’. Drink beer. Any sort of beer. Drink it, as long as it’s beer. Reminiscent of the advert that Bobby Moore (with a supporting, apparently uncredited role for Martin Peters) did for ‘pubs’ back in the 60s. 4.54pm GMT16:54 Harry Kane and a couple of others are warming up with some gusto at the break. Meanwhile, Lou Roper writes: “With respect to Richard Wood’s plea--nay demand--for respect for the Villains, how are we to classify Tottenham (‘graveyard of managers’?) as a barometer of assessment? On this evidence, more QPR than Everton, I would say. Or we could just resort to a ready mechanism: any team that includes Cleverley will never finish in the top half of the first division, sorry Barclays Premier League (TM, Jon Champion), regardless of the quality of opposition.” 4.48pm GMT16:48 Half-time: Aston Villa 1-0 Spurs Little of note happens in that minute of added time, so Villa go in with that unfamiliar feeling of having scored a goal. Villa have been decent, but aside from a few minutes after the goal, Spurs have been utterly abject. Pochettino should give all of his players a slap round the chops with a wet slipper at the break. 4.46pm GMT16:46 45 mins: One minute of added time. “Truly dreadful 1st half from Tottenham,” says Steve in Belfast. “Could be 3 down by now. Kaboul captain? Pochettino must be able to see talents that are well hidden from the rest of us!” Secret talents! How exciting. 4.44pm GMT16:44 43 mins: Woof, so close for Villa. A long cross from deep on the left causes more panic in the Spurs defence, allowing Benteke to lose his marker then beat Kaboul in the air, but his header floats just wide of the post. That, as Lando Calrissian would say, was too close. 4.43pm GMT16:43 40 mins: Richard Wood thinks we’ve been to harsh on Villa. “Can you give Villa a bit more credit than the rest of the media universe is doing?” he writes. “Their last five games since scoring against Liverpool were Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, Everton and QPR. They only really underachieved against QPR - no-one would have expected them to beat the other four. Before that, they played Stoke, Newcastle and Hull. Yet even your own Paul Doyle is saying “No sooner had the club and manager renewed their vows than the team’s performances sagged: Villa have lost five straight matches since then, failing to score a single goal.” Come on. Think about it before writing it.” Just because they’re playing good teams it doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to lose all of them horribly and not score any goals. So far this season Leicester and Hull have got draws with Arsenal, Stoke and West Ham have beaten City, Everton were dire until a few weeks ago. Etc and so on and so forth. 4.40pm GMT16:40 38 mins: Spurs try a ‘different’ free-kick routine by cutting a low ball back towards someone, but it’s utterly dismal. Villa counter but their chance goes after Benteke dithers a little too long and Jan Vertonghen tackles him. Not a spell of play to recommend either side, that. 4.38pm GMT16:38 37 mins: Chadli finds himself in what scientists call ‘bloody loads’ of space outside the area, but he’s too tentative to make much of the opportunity and a weak shot is blocked. Ryan Mason then gets some reward for some tenacious play down the right, ended when Cissokho bundles him over right on the byline. Cissokho is rather harshly booked. Updated at 5.03pm GMT 4.36pm GMT16:36 35 mins: Cissokho crosses from the left to the edge of the area, where Weimann tries an enormously ambitious left-footed effort on the half-volley, which predictably enough goes high, high, high over the bar. 4.35pm GMT16:35 34 mins: Good to see Villa taking the advice of the MBM here - they’ve looked much more lively in the last couple of minutes. Cleverley swings a cross over from the left which is safely gathered by Hugo Lloris, but at least it showed a little attacking intent. 4.33pm GMT16:33 32 mins: Oh, and there you go. A high cross from the left finds Lowton at the back stick, and the full-back is a little lucky to win a corner as his skewed effort deflects off Rose and goes wide, but closer to the goal than it would have if left alone. 4.32pm GMT16:32 31 mins: At some point Paul Lambert might want to tell his Villa players that it’s not a game of ‘First To One’ and they will need to play for another hour or so to secure the win. They have sat back to a worrying extent since scoring. 4.29pm GMT16:29 28 mins: “Harry, Harry Kaaaaaaane,” sing the Spurs fans. One assumes it was the Spurs fans, anyway. Bit weird otherwise. 4.29pm GMT16:29 27 mins: Soldado helps out those with attention problems by summing up the Spurs performance with a shot that almost goes vertically from a grounded start, which takes some doing. The Spaniard then redeems himself by slipping a lovely pass through the Villa defence to find Adebayor, who’s through on goal but Guzan dives to his right to palm away the side-footed shot. 4.27pm GMT16:27 26 mins: Performance summary thus far: Villa not bad at all, Spurs bloody awful. No worries, you’re welcome. 4.25pm GMT16:25 24 mins: Referee Neil Swarbrick unsheathes his notebook for the first time and wafts a yellow card in the face of Eriksen, his crime to pull back N’Zogbia as Villa attempted to launch an attack. 4.24pm GMT16:24 23 mins: Chance for Spurs. A free-kick comes over from the right, finds Chadli at the back stick and he clips it back into the middle. Kaboul muscles out Cissokho but can’t quite stab the ball towards goal with any conviction, allowing Guzan to gather. 4.23pm GMT16:23 22 mins: Pochettino, a little slumped on the bench, tells two players to ‘change’. Looks like Adebayor and Soldado. Would suggest that’s not what their problem has been thus far. 4.21pm GMT16:21 20 mins: Spurs try to get back into it, and Chadli cuts in from the left and fires a right-footed shot at goal, but it’s deflected wide. From the corner, Brad Guzan claims, although he did look a little like a man falling slowly backwards on a patch of ice, under pressure from Adebayor. 4.20pm GMT16:20 19 mins: The replays of that goal make the Spurs defending look ever worse. Kaboul actually turned his back, spinning in the opposite direction to the ball as Weimann slid in. A liability, and it’s baffling that he was named club captain in the summer. 4.19pm GMT16:19 18 mins: So that’s Villa 1-0 Cristiano Ronaldo. In the last 18 minutes. Take THAT Mr Fancypants. 4.18pm GMT16:18 16 mins: Spurs have frankly been asking for that, and Villa finally have a goal. Charles N’Zogbia is allowed to amble into the box from the right at his leisure, he measures a low left-footed cross and Weimann is there to slide in and direct the ball into the bottom corner. Simple stuff, which is troubling for the visitors. First goal in over nine hours, since September 13 for Villa. 4.16pm GMT16:16 GOAL! Aston Villa 1-0 Spurs (Weimann 16) That had been coming. Updated at 5.01pm GMT 4.16pm GMT16:16 15 mins: More comedy from Spurs, this time in defence. Lowton again crosses from the right, but Kaboul tries to flick a header on and it hits Benteke. Kaboul looks around for someone else to blame. 4.15pm GMT16:15 14 mins: Bosh! Benteke goes close for Villa after Cissokho gets down the left, cuts back the striker in acres just inside the Spurs box, he measures his shot and leathers the thing, but it twangs off the outside of the post and goes out for a goal kick. 4.14pm GMT16:14 12 mins: Eeesh, our first hint of real slapstick. Rose crosses from the left to Eriksen in the box, who diverts an effort towards goal but it hits Chadli, for some reason lurking around the edge of the six-yard box. It ricochets to Soldado who has a basically open goal, but he diverts the header wide. Fire up the unicycle. 4.12pm GMT16:12 11 mins: More neat passing from Spurs creates a chance for Danny Rose on the left. No Villa defender comes out to meet or stop him, leaving the left-back plenty of time to pick out a cut-back, which he does to find Eriksen in the box, but the Dane’s shot is blocked. Villa then counter down the right where Lowton hoys over a brilliant cross from deep looking for Benteke, but the big striker’s diving header goes wide. 4.09pm GMT16:09 8 mins: Neat stuff from Spurs. Adebayor plays in Chaldi down the right, and the Frenchman slides a cross back into the middle where Adebayor is there, but Ron Vlaar is just ahead of him to clear out for a corner. 4.07pm GMT16:07 6 mins: Difficult to work out Tottenham’s system so far. Chadli is on the left, Eriksen might have been told to play on the right but hasn’t spent much time there to date. Seems quite lop-sided on the admittedly scant evidence so far. 4.05pm GMT16:05 4 mins: Villa get themselves a corner on the left, which is whipped in to the near post, but Weimann nods across, then wide of goal. 4.04pm GMT16:04 2 mins: Early chance for Spurs, as Soldado, sporting a haircut similar to Brad Pitt in new film ‘Fury’, picks the ball up outside the area and fizzes a shot in the vague direction of goal, but it goes wide. 4.01pm GMT16:01 1 min: We’re off. Villa get us started with a punt towards Benteke up top. Uh-oh. 3.57pm GMT15:57 Sky have Roberto Soldado playing in the No.10 role. Huh. Let’s see how that goes. 3.55pm GMT15:55 The teams are in the tunnel. The teams are now walking out of the tunnel. Whatever nightmarish being the Villa mascot thing is supposed to be greets them as they emerge out onto the pitch. 3.50pm GMT15:50 Pre-match listening from Scotland’s finest, the Twilight Sad. It’s from their new record, which is excellent and called ‘Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave.’ 3.39pm GMT15:39 “The life of a Spurs/Villa fan,” writes Chris Eden, “Is definitely comparable to Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes for ten minutes (MBM passim).” Go on then... 3.33pm GMT15:33 Half an hour to kick-off, so plenty of time to read Paul Doyle’s look at how, despite the change of approach, Villa are still a bit rubbish under Paul Lambert. What a difference a few weeks make. Or, to put it in more pessimistic but increasingly popular terms, what an extraordinary lack of difference a radical transformation in a manager’s policy makes. Aston Villa struggled under Paul Lambert in the past two seasons and now, following a drastic strategic switch by the Scot during the summer, Aston Villa are struggling again. Yet in the first month of this season it really did look like this campaign would banish the smog of dismay that has polluted Villa Park for several years. The team took 10 points from their four opening Premier League matches and, in the wake of a heartening 1-0 victory at Anfield in mid-September, Lambert signed a new four-year contract at the club. That seemed a rather sudden reversal of fortune for a manager whom many bookmakers had ranked among the favourites to be sacked following hairy brawls against relegation in his first two seasons at the club. No sooner had the club and manager renewed their vows than the team’s performances sagged: Villa have lost five straight matches since then, failing to score a single goal. Shooting more blanks at home to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday would really strain the patience of the Villa Park crowd, still wincing from watching their team suffer a record 10 home league defeats last season. 3.29pm GMT15:29 Fashion news from Spurs. Paints quite a picture... Out come the lads to warm up in a mixture of yellow training tops and blue waterproofs. Applause from the away end. #COYS 3.08pm GMT15:08 Ooooh, a greasy top. How delightful. It's fair to say the pitch won't need the sprinklers on it before kick-off. #COYS #Raining pic.twitter.com/5mqwAg9QbI 3.06pm GMT15:06 A slightly odd team for Tottenham, then. A switch to 4-4-2 with only one winger, thus one assumes that Christian Eriksen will nominally play from the left, with Nacer Chadli on the right. Or maybe the other way round. Either, it’s a particularly narrow XI that Mauircio Pochettino has sent out, and pity poor Harry Kane, who can’t even get on the pitch when Spurs double their number of strikers. 3.03pm GMT15:03 Team news Aston Villa Guzan; Lowton, Vlaar (c), Baker, Cissokho; Westwood, Cleverley, Sanchez; Weimann, N’Zogbia, Benteke. Subs: Given, Cole, Bent, Richardson, Clark, Grealish, Agbonlahor. Tottenham Hotspur Lloris; Naughton, Kaboul (c), Vertonghen, Rose; Capoue, Chadli, Eriksen, Mason; Adebayor, Soldado. Subs: Vorm, Fazio, Dembele, Stambouli, Lamela, Townsend, Kane. Referee: Neil Swarbrick. 2.57pm GMT14:57 Preamble The problem with the binary and rather final nature of football is that dual desires can often be impossible. You can, for example, watch a game between two hated teams and want both to lose, while knowing that isn’t possible and are thus forced to choose between the lesser of two evils or the second prize of hoping neither wins. It’s similar when two utterly terrible teams face each other, ideally to retain balance within the universe neither should come away with anything approaching credit. The good thing is that when two teams with a penchant for calamity face each other, it’s perfectly possible for both to achieve paydirt. As we all know, if sport can’t be good, it should be funny, and dear reader we could be in for a pretty hilarious afternoon at Villa Park, such are the two teams’ commitment to the under-appreciated art of slapstick. In the finest traditions of comedy, there is darkness behind the laughter provided by Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur. In the claret and blue corner we have the sad clown, the run-down and dog-eared mirth-maker who gave up hope a little while ago, perhaps beset by personal tragedy and who knows that there isn’t much point in dreaming anymore, because this is probably as good as things are going to get. Krusty singing ‘Send In The Clowns’, perhaps. And in the white and navy blue corner, the angry clown, the frustrated and outraged comic raging against the dying of the light, furious about some perceived slight, cross that he has perhaps not been given the chances he deserved over the years, that he has to play the Comedy Pouch in Possum Ridge, Arkansas every year. Krusty saying ‘Aaaaahhh crap’ to ten minutes of inappropriate music, if you will. You probably know the background to this one. We have Aston Villa who, despite a fine start to the season, have lost their last five without scoring a goal. In the time since they last found the net Watford and Leeds have got through five managers, and Cristiano Ronaldo has scored a quite frankly hilarious 20 times. And then we have Spurs who, the moment they show anything approaching promise, or that they have even figured out how to act something like a football team, or start scoring outrageously skilful and showboating goals, they go and spoil it all by doing something stupid like losing to Newcastle. So let us sit back and enjoy this. Hope that we see a few custard pies, a few tiny cars, and a few buckets that look like they’re full of water, but in fact contain glitter. It’s going to be great. Updated at 3.00pm GMT 2.57pm GMT14:57 Nick will be here shortly. |