Looking Forward

Aston Villa  (Home)

Premier League

Saturday 21st January 2006

This leaves the squad as is.  Thomas Sorensen and Stuart Taylor have been trying to stop the flow of goals at the wrong end.  Sorensen has been at Villa for a few years now and his level of performance is erratic to say the least.  Tall and athletic, he sometimes flaps at crosses and can be suspect in his handling of the ball from shots.  With Keane or Defoe on the pitch, they need to follow in on any shots that are on target.  Taylor was signed from Arsenal and is a big lad, but has lacked regular first team action both at his previous club and the one he moved to to get experience.  

The defence looked like being without Mark Delaney until a few weeks ago, but a goal and some good performances have turned things around and he will feature at right back.  His colleague on the other side of the back four has said he might have to leave to seek success, but Jlloyd Samuel has also been guilty of inconsistent performances.  He likes to attack, but sometimes gets caught out from his principal duty of defending and Aaron Lennon might fancy taking him on up the line.  In the middle, Olaf Mellberg and youngster Liam Ridgewell have been featuring, with the England Under-21 international being the weaker link.  Mellberg's injury problems have restricted his appearances, meaning Aaron Hughes has had a go in the middle of the defence, but the big Swede can stop any aerial threat.  With Mido missing, Mellberg might have an easier afternoon ahead of him with Rasiak as his opponent.  Bouma has been suffering with a knee injury, but if fit to play could also be a player Spurs could work on, as he has failed to live up to the hype when he was signed from PSV Eindhoven.

Lee Hendrie is another player rumoured to be on the move, this time to Portsmouth, as he has hit a plateau in performances at Villa.  Spirited and with no little ability, Hendrie has dropped out of the picture and his busy work in midfield and powerful shooting are not images that you recall of him lately.  It is more the sulky player not getting a fair shake of the stick and getting sent off with the frustration of it all.  Now I mention it, it seems that a lot of players are being linked with a move away from the claret and blue.  Gareth Barry has nto fulfilled the potential he was always rated to have and Newcastle are the latest side who have been linked with him.  He has a great left foot, but moving forward from defence to midfield, he has been bogged down in the battle for the ball, without the space and time he has been accustomed to.  Gavin McCann is a tidy if not dynamic midfielder, who gets among the goals, but has had limited opportunity this season, mainly because James Milner has been brought in from Newcastle United on loan.  A very good young player, he hit a point at Newcastle where he wasn't doing it to the same level he did at Leeds.  A good runner with the ball and an astute runner off it, he will be one of the danger men to watch.  Northern Irish international Steve Davis has made an impact and is another who can make late runs form midfield into the area to get on the end of crosses.  A tough tackler and enthusiastic chaser, he will be a player who has to be matched by a Spurs counterpart.

Up front, Villa have struggled for goals and Juan Pablo Angel has hit two, Kevin Phillips four, Milan Baros six and Luke Moore three.  Angel is good in the air and can take players on with the bal on the floor, while Baros is a similar player, but appears to have taken on his form at Liverpool to his new club.  Luke Moore has made the breakthrough into the first team, but while he is strong runner with the ball, his positional play lacks maturity on occasion.  Phillips is at the other end of his career and lacks the pace that he once possessed, but still has the knack of knowing where to be when the ball drops.  Hopefully, whichever pairing is chosen, King and Dawson should be able to shackle them.

With the lack of Mido at the head of the team, it could affect the attacking prowess of the side.  Personally, I would like to see Lee Barnard given a chance, but I suppose we will most likely see Rasiak or maybe the Keane-Defoe partnership.  Either should be enough to do the business against the Midlanders, but with two big central defenders, maybe the little and little partnership might work better.

PREDICTION : -  Tottenham Hotspur  2    Aston Villa  1

For more information on the opponents and their history, including full result history of matches between the two teams, click here.

Coverage

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If available on BBC radio, it can be heard in these countries on these stations ...
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Internet :
www.spurs.co.uk   Live webcast  - subscribers only
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Robinson

Kelly
Dawson
King (c)
Lee

Jenas (Lennon 45)
Carrick
Davids (Brown 63)
Tainio

Keane
Defoe (Rasiak 76)

Unused subs: 
Cerny
Gardner

Sorensen

Delaney
Mellberg
Barry
Hughes

McCann
Milner
Davis
Hendrie

Angel
Baros (Moore 86 [Samuel 89])
 
Unused subs: 
Taylor
Ridgewell
Gardner

Tottenham Hotspur

None

None

   
Angel (foul) 58
Barry (foul) 82  

   
Barry (foul - second yellow) 84  

With an aggressive attitude, a fine goalkeeping performance and some luck, Aston Villa managed to keep Spurs out and go back to the Midlands with a point.

Tottenham dominated to such an extent that Villa did nto trouble Paul Robinson with a shot all afternoon and their forward line looked impotent, mainly because they were starved of service.  The midfield seemed intent on running around kicking Spurs players rather than trying to set up their strikers with opportunities.

The return to the starting line-up of Jermain Defoe paired him with Robbie Keane, in a partnership that has not always hit it off, but today worked pretty well.  Davids, King and Dawson all made the eleven after rumours of injuries, while Rasiak and Lennon sat on the bench awaiting a call to add further attacking options.

The early exchanges were ragged.  A weak Defoe shot and a clearance from Robbo as Hendrie raced onto a through ball, but with Edgar Davids unleashing a curling left foot shot in the 8th minute that had Sorensen worried until it hit the side-netting, Spurs came to life.   Carrick, Jenas and Kelly all hit shots over the bar before Tainio latched onto Carrick's pass to lift the ball high over the Danish goalie, but he used his feet well to back-peddle and tip the ball over the top. 

Sorensen was alert again a couple of minutes before the break, when Keane flicked up a ball from Lee on the edge of the box and hit a volley that the Dane managed to push round for a corner.  It was a bit of a continental goalkeeper's save, as he could have caught it, but he did enough to keep it out.  A minute later, a sickening clash of heads between Angel and Jenas led to the Spurs midfielder departing on a stretcher and being replaced by Aaron Lennon.  While Jenas had been playing OK, the introduction of the little winger sparked Tottenham in the second half.

Seven minutes into the half, Carrick slung in a corner and Tainio got on the end of it with a crouching header, but McCann was on the line to hack the ball to safety.  Then the Finn was put in again by Carrick and this time he got a shot away, but it hit Mellberg.  Defoe had been looking keen to make runs and a couple of times he was found by Keane and in the second period, he was faced by a couple of defenders, but he manouevred around them, only to put his shot over the bar.

Villa's tactic of trying to take Davids out of the game was gathering pace.  Angel chased the Dutchman 40 yards before bringing him down to earn the first yellow card of the day.  He had not been the first in the match and having a pop at the Spurs midfielder seemed to be fair game, as Poll let it go a few times.  Meanwhile, Lennon's direct running was troubling the Villa defence and having created a yard on the right, his cross went to the far post when the Spurs players had come to the near post.

Following another challenge, this time from McCann, which I would hesitate to suggest carried excessive force, Davids had to leave the field clutching his knee.  Brown came on to replace him and made his 300th career appearance in the process.  Lennon couldn't get a shot away before Mellberg blocked it and at the other end, Baros tried a shot from 25 yards, but obviously had forgotten what he was supposed to do with it, as he dragged it about 25 yards wide.

As expected, as things were nto going too well for Spurs, Rasiak came on for Defoe.  He made a couple of flick-ons and tried to lay the ball off but often looks awkward in doing so.  In the 79th minute, Lennon laid the ball back to Carrick, who steamed in to strike a ferocious shot that Sorensen did really well to push aside, but when the ball came back in from the left from the Polish striker, Tainio got a volley on it and Sorensen again dived to push the ball out.

Lennon's pace was a constant threat and Barry brought him down as he went past him in the 82nd minute.  Poll decided a yellow was in order.  Rasiak got on the end of a Lee cross to try a shot on the turn in the six yard box and a defender blocked it.  However, a cynical 84th minute foul on Lennon by Barry saw him walk for a second yellow.  Carrick blasted the free-kick high over the top and Dawson took the ball forward towards the end of the match and did the same from just about the edge of the centre circle.

It was all hands to the pump as Villa held out for a point and when Michael Brown found the ball at his feet on the edge of the box, he let fly, only to see Sorensen once more push the ball away for a corner.

It was a frustrating afternoon for Spurs fans and not just because Sorensen had such a good game.  The team failed to click as a unit once more, leaving them struggling to get a meaningful foothold in the match.  It was only when Lennon made his enforced entry that Spurs started to fire on all cylinders.

A week's rest might help, but the need to extend the gap between us and the fifth placed club needs to be established when we next get into league action.

MEHSTG TOP MAN : -  ROBBIE KEANE

Stan Chun

Aston Villa came for a point and it very nearly backfired, as Sorensen had to work a lot harder than he might've wished.

I lost count of the saves he made and we would surely have won this game if our top scorer had been present. Spurs definitely try that little bit harder when Mido is playing yet the Villa defence still had problems with our midgets strike force.

Keano dragged everyone out of position at various times and generally ran them ragged, while Defoe had them backing off every time he was on the ball. It's just a shame he couldn't do anything with it.

It was alarming to see how rusty Defoe has  become after his time on the bench and, contrary to Jol's comments, I do believe that the England hit-man is suffering a crisis of confidence. Remember the West Brom game ?  He was terrible then and only marginally better now. Rasiak simply is not an option, so we really need the little man to get his act together.  At least Keano is trying his best to make the partnership work, always looking to pass to Defoe.  As for the midfield, we played the prettier football, while the villains were more than happy to do the ugly stuff.

McCann, in particular, took great delight in kicking every one of ours and also managed to take Davids out with the worst challenge of the game, yet he stayed on the pitch, such was Poll's lack of control throughout the game.  The only time Poll got it right was when Barry took down Lennon, who was clean through on goal.  Having said that, Sorensen would probably have saved whatever Lennon sent at him, such was his command between the sticks.

Of course, our dominance was such that Robbo didn't have a save to make, Ledley and Dawson were barely troubled and our full-backs were able to bomb forward at will, with Kelly impressing throughout.

Jenas was competent until a head injury forced him out, while Tainio was easily our man of the match, turning in an all action display which deserved more than a point in return.  We can count ourselves lucky to have the Finn in our squad and on a free transfer too !  Carrick had a harder time of it, as he was denied time on the ball but his use of it was still quite magnificent, reminding one of Hoddle.

Tom Huddlestone is a similar player to the big Geordie but may only get a look in if injuries mount up, which is unfortunate.

I'm still not convinced by Brown and it's sad that good players like Mendes & Davis had to leave because of him.  Young talent like Yeates & O'Hara are farmed out on loan because Brown is occupying their place on the bench.  What the hell, we're still fourth, Colchester are top of the league one and Chesterfield lie seventh, while Coventry beat the Rams 6-1.  

Coincidence ? 

 I don't think so.

Sean Jackson