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Full Record of Cup games between Spurs and Aston Villa

FA CUP

Season   Rd  H/A  Result   Scorer(s)
1902-03  QF   H    2-3     Copeland, Woodward
1903-04  2    A    1-0     Jack Jones
1919-20  QF   H    0-1     -
1920-21  QF   H    1-0     Banks
1933-34  5    H    0-1     -
1960-61  5    A    2-0     Neal (o.g.), Jones
1961-62  6    H    2-0     Blanchflower, Jones
1968-69  5    H    3-2     Greaves (2 - 1 pen), 
                           England
1981-82  5    H    1-0     Falco
1991-92  3    A    0-0     -
1991-92  3R   H    0-1     -

LEAGUE CUP

Season   Rd  H/A  Result   Scorer(s)
1968-69  2    A    4-1     Chivers (3), Jones
1970-71  F    W    2-0     Chivers (2)
1987-88  3    A    1-2     Ardiles
1993-94  5    H    1-2     Caskey

Weakened Villa to face a still strong Spurs

Both sides have an eye on their Saturday fixtures, with Spurs hosting Chelsea, and Villa facing a tough home game against Manchester City, who are on the crest of a wave, following their Derby thrashing of Manchester United on Sunday.

Villa coach Paul Lambert has some genuine injury problems, but has already made a decision to leave out Christian Benteke, who is having a hip injury assessed. Villa will also have doubts about Agbonlahor, Delph, Westwood, Luna and Clark.

For Spurs, Jermain Defoe would normally be expected to start this game, but he has a groin strain and is also a doubt apparently. Vlad Chiriches is likely to make his debut, and Andre Villas-Boas has the luxury of offering record signing Erik Lamela a start, after his gentle introduction to English football. Lamela of course made a sigificant contribution to Sunday's win, as did Lewis Holtby, who will also surely start this game.

Brad Friedel will probably get an outing against his last club, for whom he played a full three seasons, and I am guessing Sandro will start this one in a team that will resemble that which played Tromso, more than that which faced Cardiff.

My thanks go to Declan Mulcahy, who has researched and prepared the following League Cup history between the two sides:-

Aston Villa have played 230 games to date in the league cup, which is more than any other team. Spurs are sixth in this list, having played 197 games. Villa are the second most successful team in the competition having won it five times.

Villa won the inaugural league cup competition. 1960-61 was the first season the competition was held. That season the dates for the various rounds were not designated in advance and it was up to individual clubs to arrange dates for the ties. By the end of the season only the semi-finals had been played. The final was carried over to the next season.

In those days it was a two-legged final. In late August 1961 Villa travelled to Rotherham’s ground Millmoor and lost 2-0. In early September they won the home return match 3-0 to triumph 3-2 on aggregate and become the first winners of the trophy. Thus Villa won the 1960-61 league cup during the 1961-62 season.

Coincidently Villa did not meet Rotherham again in the league cup until the previous round this year, 51 years later.

Spurs' first ever win in the league cup was against Villa at Villa Park on 4 September 1968. They won 4-1 win, with Martin Chivers bagging a hat-trick.

Two seasons later the teams met again in the 1971 league cup final. By then Villa had sunk as low as the third division. It was Spurs' first time in the final, while for Villa it was their third final, although their first League Cup Final at Wembley. This was because the other two hade been during the two-legged final phase.

Despite the two division gap Spurs made hard work of the final. They eventually prevailed with two late goals from Martin Chivers.

The next meeting between the two sides in the league cup was in October 1987 in the third round at Villa Park. David Pleat had resigned five days earlier as manager for non-footballing reasons. The acting manager was Trevor Hartley, Pleat’s former first team coach. Villa took an early lead. Ardiles equalised in the second half but Villa scored again to win 2-1. Hartley resigned a couple of days later and Doug Livermore was then appointed caretaker manager until Venables took over.

The final meeting between the two teams in the league cup was a fifth round match in January 1994 at White Hart Lane. Villa won 2-1. All three goals came in the second half with Caskey equalising Villa’s first goal. Both teams have thus won two of the four ties to date.

Villa’s only win at home this season was in the league cup against Rotherham. They have lost their two home league matches against Liverpool and Newcastle United.

Spurs have an excellent recent record at Villa Park, and haven't lost a game there in almost 9 years. Our last visit, at Christmas was a 4-0 beating of a distraught home side, when Gareth Bale was a hat-trick hero.

Maybe Lamela can get off the mark tonight. I'll go for a 2-0 win to Spurs.

· 15 years ago this week, we scraped through the second round against Brentford, winning the home leg 3-2 and 6-4 on aggregate

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