> **Villa beat Spurs to boost their Champions League hopes. Dave Woodhall’s fingernails are getting bitten.**
**Friday night’s a strange time to end your home league programme. It should have been next Tuesday but Crystal bloody Palace put paid to that. It should have been Sunday afternoon but the chance of a team one single place above the relegation zone getting into the Champions League scuppered that one as well. And so it was that Villa played that very same relegation-haunted team in an attempt to at least put some pressure on the other sides challenging for a top five finish.**
At least it was at the old kick-off time of 7.30, which raises another point. After Hillsborough midweek matches began to be put back fifteen minutes, to allow the crowd to get into the ground more easily. This particular safety measure has now been forgotten for televised games; another way in which TV is the main priority in modern football. But back to Friday evening’s entertainment.
Villa’s line-up was as expected, Spurs swapped a few players round, not that it makes much difference because after years when we wondered if we’d ever catch them up again, we’ve gone shooting past and no team they could have put out would be of the quality of ours. Of course, it was the Villa so there was bound to be some apprehension, but this is Unai Emery’s Villa. A different proposition entirely.
The scene was set early on, when John McGinn won the ball just inside the Spurs box and his shot was narrowly over. Spurs had a couple of chances, the best coming when Emiliano Martinez had to make a reflex save from an audacious backheel, but as the half wore on Villa grew in dominance. The was an equally good save at the other end as Morgan Rogers’ faint touch almost gave Villa the lead and Marco Asensio’s shot went just wide with the keeper stranded.
It was nil-nil at half-time and while that would normally be a cause for nervous apprehension, tonight the interval merely delayed the inevitable. A corner from McGinn on the hour was headed down by Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa was left laughably unmarked to hit Villa’s first. Watkins could have got another shortly afterwards but it didn’t take long for Boubacar Kamara to get Villa’s second and wrap up one of the most comfortable wins of the season.
Apart from the goalscorers, Asensio had his best game for weeks and Matty Cash did well keeping Spurs’ traditional threat quiet. The later kick-off went as expected which means Villa are now fifth and relying on results going our way for the rest of the week and then on the final day. We’ll be playing the team who are sixteenth in the table and while that should be a decent scenario, look who it is, and where. Then again, if we want to revert to the traditional Villa, when we need favourable and unlikely results on the last day we invariably get them.
And to finish off an upbeat night on a downbeat note – why the hell couldn’t we have been like this the last time we played a team from London?
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