Aston Villa - Tottenham Hotspur
We discussed Tottenham pre season .......
Tottenham sold Gareth Bale last season, spent all the money on a bunch of promsing new signings (much like Liverpool this season) and tried to shoehorn as many of them as possible into the starting eleven from the word go. With hindsight, that was never going to work and seven months after guiding them to a club record 72 points, André Villas-Boas was dismissed and replaced by the polar opposite Tim Sherwood, with the team going from a defence first policy, to no defence at all ! The newbies all needed time, few flourished and things could hardly have gone worse, but there were still positives to take from a 6th place finish, "just" 17 points adrift of champions Manchester City. They more of less played as well on the road as the top 4, but were less efficient at White Hart Lane. Towards the end of March I spoke of their problems against the bigger clubs ....Spurs are "flat track bullies" in that they have taken one point from a possible 21 against the top 4 teams, a whopping 52 from 69 against the rest ! Winning 7 from 11 at home, or 64%, that alone suggest they are value today at circa 45%.
They won that day and ended up with 68 points from a possible 90 against the "rest" of the EPL. It is hard to see them doing quite so badly this season in the big games and a little improvement will take them very close to the top 4 and to winning the handicap. Mauricio Pochettino has taken charge and has not overly tinkered with the squad, but Ben Davies and Michael Vorm from Swansea City look good business to strengthen up what was a porous defence at times and England U21 centre back Eric Dier has arrived from Sporting Lisbon. Last year's big money signings, Lamela, Chiriches, Eriksen, Soldado, Paulinho, Chadli and Capoue, will all know more about the EPL now, Andros Townsend is fit after only playing 12 times and it is hard not to see them at least flirting with the top 4 if they got off to a solid start. Emmanuel Adebayor and Soldado have been amongst the goals in pre season and one or two players are still likely to arrive before transfer deadline day. Spurs will definitely be more tactically astute under Pochettino than Sherwood and if he can instill a little more belief against the top 4 teams they could have a very solid campaign. In the last five seasons they have averaged 70 points never finishing lower than sixth, or with less than 69 points, I see improvement in them, either from the coaching side, or via more settled/established players, or both and another 5-6 points is likely and that could see them in the Champions League places if one of the main contenders slips up.
It has been a poor start for them so far, with just 11 points earned, but a two goal win today could take them as high as 7th and it has been largely as there were from last season, struggling at WHL and against the big name teams, although on the road they did manage a draw with Arsenal, win at West Ham United and drew 2-2 with Sunderland, where 1-5 would have been a fairer reflection of the game. So, similar in many ways to what we saw last season, they are far more comfortable away from home and against the lesser teams. Villa certainly fall into that camp and we previewed their trip to Loftus Road to play QPR on Monday ....
Villa started their season well , bit have lost their last four, conceding 11 goals in the process, without scoring, all four matches were against one of the "Big 7" EPL teams, but the Villans have been toothless for sometime and have failed to score in 8 of their last 11 competitive fixtures. The lack of goals is hardly a surprise as they have been creating very little, just 13 attempts on target through eight matches and that 1.63 average is far and away the lowest in the top flight with Burnley, Sunderland and Leicester City all creating almost double that number and Rangers 2.12 per game more. The visitors do have Christian Benteke back in the squad now, but he is a long way behind in terms of match fitness and needs a run of games and went ten without a goal or assist when returning from injury last season and six of those starts were against teams battling relegation.
On paper , the hosts are better than the league table and early season performances suggest, but have underperformed, however, they are coming off a very unlucky loss to Liverpool, where they were the better team for an hour and battled for 95 minutes and boss Harry Redknappp called it the best the R's had played during his time in charge and it galvanised the supporters and the atmosphere will be similarly lively this evening. Already five points from safety and facing Chelsea and Manchester Ciity next, failure to secure all three points tonight could see them quickly cast adrift at the foot of the table and this is a fantastic opportunity to kick start their season and build on their last performance. Joey Barton is still a massive loss for them, but is balanced out by Villa losing Fabian Delph who has been similarly influential for them , to long term injury.
They lost that 2-0 , their fifth defeat in a row, all without scoring. Tottenham will fancy this, they have won on their last three visits to Villa Park by a combined 10-0 and have done the double over Villa the last three seasons without conceding and had 63% possession in the last meeting here, which are big road numbers in the EPL. Hosts are without right back Alan Hutton who's absence the Spurs wide men will be able to exploit, along with Fabian Delph( see above) and centre back Philippe Senderos and this looks a very good opportunity for the visitors to get back on track. Away win.
1.5 units Tottenham Hotspur -0.75 ball 2.33 asian line/Sportmarket.
Good Luck.
