Spurs - Villa V Spurs match preview

By Fist
October 13 2006

The newest Premiership owner will be feeling ‘awesome’ that the newest Premiership manager has got off to a lively start; a trio of draws away at Arsenal, West Ham and Chelsea are enviable, hardly less so the comfortable 2-0’s at home to Newcastle and Charlton.

Aston Villa vs. Tottenham Hotspur – two under achieving giants a’stirring (three if you include Jol)


The newest Premiership owner will be feeling ‘awesome’ that the newest Premiership manager has got off to a lively start; a trio of draws away at Arsenal, West Ham and Chelsea are enviable, hardly less so the comfortable 2-0’s at home to Newcastle and Charlton. And against tricky and spirited new boys, O’Neil has managed a draw at Watford and a 2-1 win at home to Reading – he’d have taken that at the beginning, and so would any other Premiership manager outside SW6. American Randy Lerner is probably feeling, well, exactly that.

O’Neil’s passage has, however, been greatly greased by the unpredictable ingredient all managers crave, good fortune; For the past five matches he’s been able to pick a rock steady nine – yep, nine; Barry, Ridgewell, Mellberg and Sorensen at the back, Agbonlahor, Moore and Angel up front, and McCann and Davies in the middle – nine players, seven weeks, five games, three clean sheets, and one tight, hard working unit. Until now.

Sorensen and, importantly, Moore are both newly injured and O’Neil has to rethink. It might be that Baros can slot into Moore’s wide role as smoothly as Zokora has replaced Carrick . . . no really, I’m serious . . . It will, though, be interesting to see whether the first significant changes for some weeks do cause Villa’s throttle to ease off just a few percent.

Two other factors have helped O’Neil in his first two months, surprise and Stilian. Mr Petrov arrived at the end of August and has played 90 minutes in each of Villa’s last four games. Just as O’Neil’s abiding career influence Brian Clough would parachute in old reliables like John McGovern to his new club, so O’Neil has done, with firstly Neil Lennon (to Celtic from Leicester) and now Stilian Petrov from Celtic to Villa; it’s clear that Petrov is intended as O’Neil’s McGovern, the rock, the heartbeat, the manager’s will on the park. You could almost get misty-eyed imagining Cloughie looking down and nudging Peter Taylor, saying “cheeky beggar learnt that off me”.

Perhaps the other factor contributing to Villa currently sitting 6th in the table is surprise; the rest of the Premiership are surely still reviewing the tapes and scribbling notes detailing the breadth and pace of this new Villa formation, not to mention the movement it generates. No one doubts that in this first phase of the new man’s reign, Aston Villa have become a handful, yet the Honeymoon always ends – new formations and tactics lose their lustre - and this weekend it’s Martin Jol’s turn to try and despoil Randy’s young learners.

After last season, no one doubts the new Spurs are a handful, as well. Or should be. We know now you don’t slip £18 million into the back pocket without it costing you Premiership points, and we’re also beginning to understand, players and supporters, that the rhythm of a season changes significantly when you’re involved in Europe – or in the case of Jol’s Tottenham, perhaps any kind of Cup competition at all.

Unfortunately for us, Jol’s experience with injuries contrasts starkly with O’Neil’s. We travel with limited midfield options (absent: Malbranque, Lennon and now Tainio) and unsure about Ledley’s knee. We do, though, have attacking options and the makings of a seriously handy defensive unit.

Jol will still deploy an uncomplicated 4-4-2 against O’Neil’s 4-3-3/4-5-1 and we’ll spend a chunk of Saturday afternoon hoping the angled runs into space and channels of Villa’s attack don’t pay off. Our full backs will actually earn their wages against pace and guile, and we’ll struggle to deliver quality into Berby Baby and, presumably, Keane. Should we fall behind, Jol should switch to a diamond with Danny Murphy assuming Tainio’s clever role at the apex.

I guess it’ll be tight, low scoring and – if no goals are scored in the first hour – increasingly open as O’Neil, at home with a rejuvenated core support, won’t hold back. But if there is an early goal, it could become a little thriller at Villa, as the Sunday papers will certainly have it.

In the current climate a point would do, and, sticking my neck out, I predict any result you like.

FIST!