Aston Villa host Tottenham Hotspur at Villa Park in a crunch battle for Europa League qualification.
Victory could see Villa leapfrog Tottenham into sixth position if can win by three goals or more, whilst Tottenham will stay sixth with a win.
Team News
Matty Cash could return for Aston Villa following his recovery from a muscle injury which had sidelined him since late March.
Goalkeeper, Jed Steer (Achilles) remains absent.
Tottenham could be without defender, Clement Lenglet after he suffered a shoulder injury during their win against Crystal Palace last weekend.
Hugo Lloris (muscle), Ryan Sessegnon (hamstring) and Rodrigo Bentancur (ACL) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off
Villa host Tottenham at Villa Park on Saturday 13 May in a 3pm BST kick-off, untelevised in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Aston Villa have won two of their last nine league meetings against Tottenham (W2, L7).
- Tottenham are unbeaten in their last 11 league visits to Villa (W9, D2).
- Villa are looking to do the league double over Spurs for the first time since 1995-96 season.
- Tyrone Mings has had more touches on the ball than any other Villa player this season, having made 2,125 touches in 32 league appearances.
- Spurs’ Son Heung-Min has hit the woodwork on a joint league-high five occasions this season alongside; Erling Haaland, Darwin Nunez and Villa’s Ollie Watkins.
Prediction
With their top-four hopes now over following sluggish 1-0 defeats at Manchester United and Wolves in the last fortnight, Villa now need to reset because defeat here could now be damaging for their hopes of Europa League or Europa Conference League qualification.
Unai Emery though should be worried about how his Villains lacked intensity and clinical end product on the attack at Molineux last weekend to beat Jose Sa, because this will be an equally tough game especially with their set piece defending likely to be tested once again.
Tottenham meanwhile really are lucky to have beaten Palace last weekend courtesy of Harry Kane’s headed winner because they were wasteful in open play, whilst their defence were lucky that Palace lacked end product themselves at the opposite end.
Victory though is imperative for Spurs here because if Man Utd and Liverpool both lose elsewhere this weekend, it would put the North Londoners right back into the top-four mix but this is the toughest Villa team that Tottenham have faced in a long time.
On that note, I am seriously expecting a tough battle between two teams whose defensive performances haven’t exactly been impressive in the past fortnight, so a draw might actually be the simplest call.
Prediction: Aston Villa 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur
Result: Aston Villa 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur
Leave a Reply