By Ian King
Villa on the up
Aston Villa arrive for this significant match in good kind. They’ve gained seven of their final eight within the League, with the one blot on that copybook being a 2-1 defeat at Manchester Metropolis which required a stoppage-time winner to safe all three factors. They’re sixth and two factors off a Champions League place, with two video games of the season left to play.
Spurs’ kind is fairly near the inverse of this. They’ve now gained simply one in every of their final ten within the Premier League, and that was towards Southampton, greater than a month in the past. All Spurs eyes are on the Europa League in the meanwhile, however they arrive for this match in seventeenth place within the Premier League, which is… sub-optimal.
Historical past
Villa have conceded 4 objectives on every of the final two events they’ve performed Spurs within the League, together with a 4-1 win within the reverse of this fixture again in September. However they’d gained the golf equipment’ three earlier League conferences previous to this, whereas in addition they knocked them out of the FA Cup within the Fourth Spherical with a 2-1 win at Villa Park in February.
Key Gamers
Accidents have meant that Richarlison has made simply 13 appearances for Spurs this season, and 9 of them have come from the bench. With simply 4 League objectives to his identify all season and rumours that he may very well be leaving as soon as the top lastly comes round, each he and Ange Postecoglou might do with a giant efficiency from him on this match.
Aston Villa know {that a} failure win this match might imply the top of their probabilities of repeating this season’s Champions League journey, and Ollie Watkins has been bang on kind lately, scoring within the first minute of their 4-1 thrashing of Newcastle 4 weeks in the past and scoring the winner of their final outing versus Bournemouth. Spurs’ brittle defence might present fertile floor for him to enhance on the 16 League objectives he’s already scored this season.
Crew Information
The most recent Spurs harm is Dejan Kulusevski, who will now be lacking the rest of this season alongside James Maddison, Radu Drăgușin and Lucas Bergvall. For Aston Villa, Jacob Ramsey is suspended after his sending off towards Bournemouth, whereas Marcus Rashford is unlikely to begin and Youri Tielemans missed the Bournemouth match and faces a health check earlier than this one.
Prediction
It’s been a determined season within the Premier League for Spurs, and there are few causes to imagine that they’ll enhance for this journey to an in-form Aston Villa. They’re at present seventeenth, and ending on this place would signify their worst high flight look since being relegated in 1977. Villa are enjoying properly and have the massive incentive of holding their Champions League hopes alive with a win. I can’t see previous a snug house win, so I’ll go 3-0 Villa and for Spurs’ agony to proceed unabated.
(Cowl picture from IMAGO)
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