Bale's Christmas Topping
Gareth Bale won the man of the match vote by a clear margin and with a score of 9.1 out of 10, which is the best mark of any player this season, and the best since Adebayor's 9.2 when we beat Newcastle 5-0 lasy February.
It was Gareth's best mark since he scored a 9 in the Norwich game last December 27th, when he also took advantage of another Paul Lambert side, scoring both our goals in a 2-0 win, where the performance excelled the scoreline.
Gareth himself tweeted a picture this week of his match ball on top of his very own Christmas tree!
As stated in the Villa match report, the 4-0 win was our best of the season, and hence the best under Andre Villas-Boas's leadership, but not the best ever win at Villa Park. On 6th January, 1934, Spurs beat Villa 5-1 on their turf, with goals by Tom Meads, Jimmy McCormick (2), George Hunt, and Les Howe. Spurs achieved the league "double" over Villa that season, as they have this time round, but funnily enough were beaten by Villa in the FA Cup 5th Round at White Hart Lane in February, 1934.
Bale's hat-trick was our second of the season, but first in the league. Jermain Defoe scored the other hat-trick in the Europa League at home to Maribor. Bale's last hat-trick was of course in that 4-3 defeat against Inter in the San Siro on 20th October, 2010.
Jermain Defoe scored our last league hat-trick in the 9-1 beating of Wigan in November, 2009, when he scored a total of 5 goals, of course. Jermain also bagged three in our previous best away league win at Hull in August, 2009 (5-1).
Bale is now one league goal behind Defoe this season, with 9 goals. This total already matches his best league total of last season.
Jermain Defoe scored his 89th Premier League goal for Spurs (134 in total) at Villa, and now has a grand total of 132 goals for Spurs in all games. Jermain is likely to go fifth in the list of all-time Spurs goal-scorers this season, with Alan Gilzean (133), Len Duquemin (134) and George Hunt (138) immediately above him. He recently overtook Teddy Sheringham and Robbie Keane in this list.
· See the Spursometer for the Villa game in full
Results 26.12.12
Everton 2-1 Wigan
Fulham 1-1 S'hampton
Man Utd 4-3 Newcastle
Norwich 0-1 Chelsea
QPR 1-2 West Brom
Reading 0-0 Swansea
S'derland 1-0 Man City
A. Villa 0-4 Spurs
Stoke 3-1 Liverpool
Barclays Premier League
P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Man Utd 19 15 1 3 48-28 20 46
2. Man City 19 11 6 2 34-16 18 39
3. Chelsea 18 10 5 3 37-17 20 35
4. Spurs 19 10 3 6 34-25 9 33
5. Everton 19 8 9 2 32-23 9 33
6. West Brom 19 10 3 6 28-23 5 33
7. Arsenal 18 8 6 4 32-18 14 30
8. Stoke 19 6 10 3 18-14 4 28
9. Swansea 19 6 7 6 27-23 4 25
10. Liverpool 19 6 7 6 28-26 2 25
11. Norwich 19 6 7 6 20-28 -8 25
12. West Ham 18 6 5 7 22-24 0 23
13. S'derland 19 5 7 7 20-24 -4 22
14. Fulham 19 5 6 8 29-34 -5 21
15. Newcastle 19 5 5 9 23-30 -7 20
16. A. Villa 19 4 6 9 15-36 -21 18
17. S'hampton 18 4 4 10 23-34 -11 16
18. Wigan 19 4 3 12 19-35 -16 15
19. Reading 19 1 7 11 21-37 -16 10
20. QPR 19 1 7 11 16-33 -17 10
