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This was a strange game in a number of ways, with Aston Villa running the first
half, but ending it all square, before Spurs staged a good comeback in
the second period to win the game 2-1 with Rafael van der Vaart being
the man who scored both.
Following a tough Champions League
encounter with Twente Enschede on Wednesday, when Spurs had to play for
30 minutes with only ten men, it looked as though the team would suffer
from that fatigue, with the visitors taking the game to Tottenham in the
first half. But for all their possession and territorial
advantage, Aston Villa failed to trouble the goal as much as they should
have and subsequently lead by a single goal for the majority of the
half.
The first clear opening came to Tottenham
when Luka Modric played in a delicate ball to the far post, when Roman
Pavyluchenko came in to head the ball over from close in, with Villa
keeper Brad Friedel being able to do nothing more than try to distract
the Russian striker, which he managed to do as Pav put his header wide.
This action was soon followed by an
incident when Heurelho Gomes rushed out to gather a through ball on the
ground and was left needing treatment as Marc Albrighton caught him with
a boot in the midriff on his follow-through. This was not the only
instance of an attempt to rough up a tired Tottenham side, with Bale
twice laid out with blows to the head and some crude tackles from
behind, which referee Mark Clattenburg chose not to produce yellow cards
for. It wasn't all one way, as Jenas caught Heskey with a foot off
the floor, although he had got a touch on the ball before his
follow-through made contact.
With the Spurs physio becoming a regular
visitor to the pitch, Villa's energy and aggression was over-powering
Spurs, who had to take Tom Huddlestone out of the midfield to play
alongside Sebastien Bassong in the middle of defence. Eight
minutes into the game, Villa fans wanted a penalty, as Heskey went into
the box, slipped and went to ground (no surprise there then) and as he
got up, Alan Hutton bumped into him and the Villa forward once more
found his best position (laying on the grass). The ref was not
interested in the claims ... and appeared less than interested in the
rest of the game as well in my opinion.
It was 15 minutes in when Villa's closing
down paid dividends. An aimless ball went down towards the left
hand corner flag at the Spurs end, with Bassong ahead of Heskey in the
race for the ball. Trying to hold the striker off, Seb lost his
bearings and Heskey wrestled the ball off him near the dead ball line
and went past him to lay a ball all the way across the six yard box to
where Albrighton was running in. With Hutton slightly behind him
in the tussle for the ball, the midfielder slid the ball in at the far
post and the visitors were ahead. It was a goal that had been
coming, even though Villa had not troubled the goal too much.
Spurs could have got back into the game
when Bale got free for one of the few moments in the first half when he
wasn't crowded out of the play. His low ball into the goalmouth in
the 21st minute found Pavlyuchenko, who shot, but Dunne got in the way,
taking the ball to the right side of the box, where Hutton ran in to
striker a shot that should have tested Friedel, but instead rippled the
outside of the side-netting.
There was always a doubt as to whether
Villa would be able to keep up the energy they were putting in for the
whole 90 minutes and Heskey could only last 35 minutes, when he limped
off with a dead leg that he picked up in creating the goal. Six
minutes before the break, the Bale-Pav combination linked up again and
this time, Roman touched the Welshman's cross at the near post and it
was a difficult chance, but the ball went across the goal, with Crouch
coming in at the far post unable to reach it.
Villa then had a couple of opportunities
to double their lead. Stewart Downing, who once more failed to
show why Spurs would have been interested in signing him, broke away on
the left and pulled a low pass back to substitute John Carew outside the
box. The striker had time and space to hit a strike on goal, but
instead of making the shaken Gomes work, his effort only troubled the
third row of the upper tier in the Park Lane. Shortly after, as
soft free-kick gave Ashley Young the chance to score from 20 yards out
and in a central position. His shot went around the wall, but flew
a yard wide of the left hand angle of Gomes' goal.
It was with a couple of minutes left that
Rafael van der Vaart started to take a grip of the game. Firstly,
he quickly struck as shot that flew along the ground that had Friedel
going down to it, but he failed to convince with his stop and the ball
squirted away from him and went off for a corner. Then took the ball off
Pavlyuchenko as they both went for a dropping ball and struck a shot
that went over with Clattenburg confusingly awarding a corner for a
flick off Collins, when it didn't appear to. From that corner on
the Tottenham left, the ball was cleared out to the other side of the
penalty area, where it was picked up by Pav. He measured his cross
back to the far post and Peter Crouch rose to head across goal, where
van der Vaart jumped high to head in as Richard Dunne jumped in front of
him rather than for the ball. it was a goal that came form
Rafael's determination to get to the ball and score, whereas Dunne was
not equal to that.
Coming in injury time, it was a good
psychological time to score and hit Villa when perhaps they deserved to
go into half time ahead. However, it proved the turning point in
the match, as Harry Redknapp took off Pavlyuchenko at half-time and
brought on Aaron Lennon to stretch Villa on both wings and to allow van
der Vaart to play further up the pitch. The change gave Villa more
problems than they had been posed in the first half and allowed
Tottenham more space to play.
However, it was Villa who could have gone
ahead five minutes after the break, when an Ashley Young corner went to
the far post and with space, Downing could only volley wide from about
ten yards out. van der Vaart was reading Crouchs knock-downs well
now and he had two chances from them. One saw him bundled off the
ball by Warnock at the far post, where the result should have been a
corner if the Villa defender got the ball or a penalty if he didn't, but
the outcome was a goal-kick. Another opening for van der Vaart saw
him played in by Bale on the left and as he shaped to shoot, the ball
was blocked by slide from Dunne, which also resulted in Rafael taking a
bit of a knock. But he kept going.
In between, Carew outmuscled Huddlestone
and looked like he was going to shoot at goal, but he chose to pull the
ball back across the box to find no claret and blue shirt there.
Then Stylian Petrov hit a low shot from 25 yards that Gomes comfortably
gathered, which was just after Assou-Ekotto returned a clearance with a
rising 30 yard drive that Friedel had covered. The nearest Villa
came to scoring in the second half was when Ashley Young's left wing
cross came in low and Gomes went for it at the near post with Carew,
they both missed it and Albrighton could not turn it in beyond them both
at the far post. It was a let off for Tottenham and one they made
Villa pay for.
Carew had a header from a corner that
went over the bar, but Spurs again answered that with Huddlestone
flicking on Modric's corner and Crouch heading just wide of the post as
he dived in. If Tom hadn't have touched the ball, Crouchy might
have had a better effort. And in the 75th minute, Crouch got free
at the far post as Aaron Lennon's cross came in from the right and he
nodded the ball down to the centre of the goalmouth, where VDV let the
ball go across him, foxing Dunne who dived in to block, but was left on
the floor as Rafael made a yard for himself to smack the ball past
Friedel from a couple of yards out to put Tottenham 2-1 up.
Wilson Palacios came on for Modric to
stiffen up the midfield and hold onto what we had, while Ireland and
Bannan were brought on by Villa, but Spurs had control of the game now.
Crouch slipped when he was about to shoot and then Spurs won a free-kick
as Lennon was sent clear and went past Collins, who cynically chopped
him down. He might not have been the last man, but it was almost a
red card offence for the professional manner he brought him down having
skipped past him. Gareth Bale knocked a short free-kick saw Rafael
shoot over from 25 yards, although the ball to him was a little too
close to a Villa player closing him down.
Some good work down the right was opening
Villa up and Hutton and Lennon exchanged passes, with the Scot hitting a
shot on goal that was stopped by Collins throwing himself in the way.
He had been given instruction by Redknapp to get forward earlier in the
half and this pushed Ashley Young further back, thus neutralising his
threat.
van der Vaart was replaced as the game
ticked into added time and he was given a great reception, as a class
act showed his worth. Sandro came on but did not get a touch
before the final whistle, with the only other notable event being Bale
getting a yellow card for kicking the ball away and time-wasting, when
Friedel had been getting away with it from the start. The rush he
was in to take the final free-kick was hilarious to see after what had
gone before.
So, a good three points and a win that
will see Spurs into the international break. It takes Tottenham up
to fifth and while the first half was a little dodgy, they showed that
players can play in unfamiliar positions and do a job. But one man
stood head and shoulders above the others and Rafael van der Vaart is
already going a long way to making himself one of the most popular Spurs
signings of recent years.
kirk hammerton
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Aston
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