VILLA PARK — In the away end, they chanted – with added sweary gloating – that half their team had put the ball in the Aston Villa net. Mathematically unsound, but we’ll allow the general message. After three winless Premier League away games, eight goals conceded along the way, this was a mighty milestone during Ange Postecoglou’s debut season. Few on either team predicted such comfort and such crowing.
There is still much uncertainty about whether the Premier League will get four or five places in next season’s Champions League, not helped by Brighton’s collapse in Rome last week.
As such, and given its timing in March rather than May, this was no certain play-off for anything at all. But Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur met knowing that opportunity had arrived to set the tone. In the second half, in the cold and the rain and the wind, Spurs’ message was emphatic.
If the first half was bitty and uninspiring, Tottenham perhaps sizing up the health of a prolific home attack, the second was a complete attacking display. By the time of Son Heung-Min’s shot – hit first time from 15 yards and hard enough to take off your hand – the home ends at Villa Park were barely a third full. Tottenham still found time to score again.
This was billed as a fixture between two of the most forward-thinking teams in the country. Villa must make this a bump rather than a roadblock.
Life has not been easy for Brennan Johnson at Tottenham. When you are the replacement, in body at least, for the greatest attacker in the history of the club who nobody ever wanted to lose, a pressure is generated that is entirely impossible to cope with.
Nobody could ever match up to Harry Kane and Johnson could never try: younger, more raw, less experience and in a different position. Good luck, kid.
There were steps both forward and back before Christmas. Johnson clearly has talent to take on and beat a man and his finishing was better than most gave him credit for at Nottingham Forest, but supporters began to gripe about a lack of end product and a semi-wayward relationship with Son.
Patience was clearly required, but Postecoglou had plans and they were unfolding quickly. Recently, signs of Johnson finding his feet and Tottenham learning how to service a lightning-fast winger with Son more central and still just as important.
Johnson has seven goal contributions in his last 10 league appearances and four of those were as a substitute. When Johnson is on it, as against Villa, he offers an entirely different dimension because defenders are scared of his pace with the ball at his feet.
Twice in the first 15 minutes, Johnson skipped past Matty Cash. There’s that tone being set again.
It helped that Villa were alarmingly sluggish in general. Europa Conference League commitments have barely seemed to affect Villa this season, but the 0-0 draw in Amsterdam on Thursday had sapped at least half of their energy against a Tottenham side with a free midweek.
Ollie Watkins looked hamstrung after a strong early tackle. Leon Bailey completed one pass in the opening 40 minutes. Central midfield was non-existent for the 20 minutes when Tottenham took complete charge.
Player of the match: Brennan Johnson
- Any number of nominations, but Brennan Johnson set the attacking tone and scored the second.
The game had already been lost when John McGinn kicked out at Destiny Udogie, but he was a dim personification of the general frustration. Home supporters may have cried foul about the decision to send off McGinn, but the tackle was wild, petulant, never even considering the ball and stopping a break all in one. You could merit a yellow for each one of those characteristics.
The question on the lips of those coming out of Villa Park was whether Unai Emery had over-thought this one. He opted to switch formation to a back three, perhaps to try and get his wing-backs up high and thus stop Tottenham’s full-backs doing the same. But Youri Tielemans was ineffective and it left Bailey and Watkins isolated. When the ball didn’t stick in the final third, Tottenham were able to spark counter-attacks that exposed Villa’s high defensive line.
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