· This season's home game - Spurs 3 Villa 1 - 10.08.19
· This week - last year
· What happened in the Premier League on Matchday 26 2018-19
· See the current injury list for all Premier League Teams
· All the Spurs Stats you could hope for here! THFC6061 Sports Stats

Full Record of Spurs -v- Aston Villa

 
Prem          Pl  W  D  L   For-Ag  Pts
Home          25 13  7  5   41 -25  46
Away          24  7  8  9   27 -27  29
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Total(Prem)   49 20 15 14   68 -52  75
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Football Lge
Home (Div 1)  47 25  6 16   99 -77  62
Away (Div 1)  47 17 11 19   72 -75  48
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Total(Div 1)  94 42 17 35  171 -152 110 
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Football Lge
Home (Div 2)   2  1  1  0    4 - 3   3
Away (Div 2)   2  0  1  1    1 - 3   1
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Total(Div 2)   4  1  2  1    5 - 6   4
======================================
Total(Prem)   49 20 15 14   68 -52  75
Total(Div 1)  94 42 17 35  171-152 110
Total(Div 2)   4  1  2  1    5 - 6   4
======================================
Grand Total  147 63 34 50  244-208 189
======================================

Last Six Premier League results:-

A. Villa   -    LWLDWL

Watford    3-0    A. Villa
Burnley    1-2    A. Villa
A. Villa   1-6    Man City
Brighton   1-1    A. Villa
A. Villa   2-1    Watford
B'mouth    2-1    A. Villa


Spurs      -    DLLDWW
           
Norwich    2-2    Spurs
S'hampton  1-0    Spurs
Spurs      0-1    Liverpool
Watford    0-0    Spurs
Spurs      2-1    Norwich
Spurs      2-0    Man City

Pos            P  W  D  L   F-A   GD  Pts
 6. Spurs     25 10  7  8  40-32   8   37 
17. A. Villa  25  7  4 14  32-47 -15   25

The bigger menace could be Storm Dennis!

There was always an imbalance to this first Premier League winter break. Last week four games were scheduled. Now the postponed Manchester City v West Ham game has been re-scheduled for next Wednesday. Thus seven of the Matchday 26 games will be seen this week. Spurs travel to Villa Park for the first time in nearly four years and with the wet and windy weather promised this weekend Storm "Dennis" might be the bigger menace whilst we play a team battling to avoid another relegation.

This will be our fiftieth Premier League game against Aston Villa, and our 148th league meeting in all. We currently enjoy superiority in terms of wins in both those spheres. Our last visit to Villa Park was in March 2016 when Harry Kane scored both our goals. How the "Villans" must love Harry (not!), who gave us the win in our home game with two late goals in August! Harry has now scored 6 Premier League goals in just 6 games against Villa, who will be happy that Kane is not playing this week.

This match is the return fixture of our opening day home game in which Villa took a ninth minute lead and Spurs took until the second half to equalise before ultimately winning the game. Substitute Christian Eriksen sparked the Spurs recovery which began when Tanguy Ndombele scored the equaliser on his Premier League debut after 73 minutes. Harry Kane's goals were his first and secnd in the new stadium.

Aston Villa have a Carabao Cup Final to look forward to after conquering Leicester in the two-leg semi-final last month. Their opponents will be Manchester City, who recently won 6-1 at Villa Park. City will be seeking a third consecutive League Cup trophy and a fifth such win in the last six years. Whilst Villa will be looking forward to their day out immensely, their absolute priority has to be Premier League survival.

Villa's last two trophies were the League Cup, won in the nineties. Their last Wembley Final was of course last year's play-off final in which they beat Derby County 2-1 with goals by El Ghazi and John McGinn, who has been a force for the "Villans" in midfield this season. McGinn suffered a foot fracture in December and faces a few weeks out of action yet.

Another midfield force and darling of the Villa fans is of course club captain Jack Grealish. Grealish is 24. He was born in Birmingham and is Villa through and through. He has now played 146 league games for the side and has scored 7 goals in his 23 Premier League games this season. Courted by several Premier League clubs including Spurs in the past, Grealish desperately wanted his club's return to the top flight last season. He initially played for the Ireland Under 21 side until 2014, but switched to the Englnd U-21s in 2016. A senior call-up for England is surely on the cards for the friendly matches next month. The first record I can find on Spurs Odyssey of Jack Grealish is in an U-18 match at Bodymoor Heath against Spurs in September 2012. Grealish scored two goals that day in a 4-2 win for the "Villans"'s side. Grealish is the one player of the 31 listed players that day who has made it at the very highest level. Harry Winks did play for Spurs in their next U-18 game.

Aston Villa's last trip to Wembley for a Cup Final came with former Spurs man Tim Sherwood at the helm in 2015, but they lost 4-0 to Arsenal. Villa were relegated the following year. They had four managers during that season. First it was Sherwood, who left after a home defeat to Swansea in October. Kevin MacDonald was caretaker for a couple of games before aformer Arsenal man (Remi Garde) took charge. Garde was sacked after an away defeat to Swansea in March 2016, after which another caretaker (Eric Black) tried but failed to get Villa off the bottom of the table.

Roberto Di Matteo had no success in the early phase of 2016/17. He was followed by Steve Bruce before current boss (and Villa fan) Dean Smith took over in October 2018. Smith's first game in charge was against Swansea, who were beaten 1-0. Villa did a "Fulham" and spent well over £100 million last summer on new players. That clearly was not enough and during the January window they signed goalkeeper Pepe Reina (once of Liverpool) on loan from A.C. Milan, following the long-term injury to Tom Heaton. Norwegian international Orjan Nyland saw Villa through to Wembley, but Reina is clearly going to be the number one choice for the remainder of the league season.

Another January signing was 27-year-old Tanzanian striker Mbwana Samatta from Racing Genk. Samatta plays across the front line. He had scored 53 league goals in 139 games in the Belgian League, and scored his first Villa goal in their defeat at fellow strugglers Bournemouth. A less successful loan signing was Danny Drinkwater. Drinkwater played a major role in Leicester's 2015/16 title-winning season and was signed by Chelsea the following year. As a Leicester player he won three senior caps for England (all in friendlies), but has never made an impact at Chelsea. he spent the early part of this season at Burnley, and had a disastrous Villa debut in their 6-1 defeat by Man City.

Ben Davies recently returned to full training. He played, but was injured, in Jose Mourinho's first game away to West Ham. Jose has often mentioned Davies, and with the loan departure of Danny Rose, presumably sees the Welsh International as his first choice left back. Whether he starts this game with Leipzig coming to Tottenham on Wednesday remains to be seen. The only known absentees Harry Kane and Moussa Sissoko, along with Juan Foyth who has a groin injury. Ereik Lamela will be subject to a late assessment. Giovani Lo Velso is definitely available.

Apart from Storm "Dennis" this is goimg to be a tough game in front of a vibrant Villa Park crowd and the SKY 2pm cameras. I have predicted a 2-0 win for Spurs.

Since the advent of VAR, hardly any referee we have encountered this season gets a decent assessment from those who vote on the Spurs Odyssey post-match surveys. Martin Atkinson, who officiates Sunday's game, has been no exception with a best mark of 4.5 (out of 10) for his last Spurs match which was the 1-0 home defeat by Liverpool. The other Spurs games in which Mr. Atkinson has been the man in the middle were the Arsenal and Everton away games. The first time Mr. Atkinson was graded by Spurs fans was in an FA Cup quarter-final replay in March 2010, which we won 3-1. Mr. Atkinson was given a mark of 7.3 and it's all been downhill for him since! The first game I can find where Mr. Atkinson refereed Spurs was in August 2005.

· "Ten Years After" - Spurs Odyssey reviews the season in which we first qualified for the Champions League. On Valentines' Day 2010 we drew 1-1 away to Bolton in an FA Cup Fifth Round game.

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