solanke deserves an award ‘Ange postecoglou’ was really impressed
A stop-start slow burner of an afternoon saw Spurs rouse themselves after a dull first half to run away with it at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
After cancelling out a Villa opener through Brennan Johnson, they went on to blow Villa away, thanks to two Dom Solanke strikes and one from sub James Maddison.
The first from Solanke was a smart dinked finish which needed checking for offside after the ball was played through to him by Dejan Kulusevski. The second was a tap in to convert a low cross from Richarlison.
Maddison came off the bench to curl in a free-kick in injury time to lend the scoreline an unexpectedly sparkling sheen.
The outcome had been hard to envisage after a soporific first half in which Morgan Rogers had given the visitors the lead, but attacking their huge home end, and with the fans raising the volume, the hosts were transformed.
That makes it four wins out of five at home in the league and the gap to Villa and the top four places has been reduced to two points.
It had been a niggly encounter until Spurs got back on level terms. Ref Craig Pawson did his best to let the game flow and kept his yellow card under wraps but lost patience with Pedro Porro and Cristian Romero for fouls.
The game did not see a real shot in anger until it was half way through the first half – a Rodrigo Bentancur effort from outside the area rippling the roof of the net.
It woke up Villa enough for them to finally get on the front foot and a fine leap and header from Amadou Onana from a Lucas Digne cross struck the base of the post.
The ball was scrambled behind and from the resulting inswinging corner, the ball was stabbed in from three yards by Morgan Rogers after flicking off the head of Porro and being parried off the line by Guglielmo Vicario.
Spurs were lucky it was not two as Ollie Watkins powered through onto a Rogers pass before sending a low left footer just wide.
Ange’s men had not been great but all was forgotten within five minutes of the restart when Heung-Min Son checked back before arrowing a ball towards the far post for Brennan Johnson to convert.
Moments later, and with the wind suddenly in their sails, Destiny Udogie crossed for Solanke to turn and drill towards the bottom corner. Emi Martinez needed to spring down quickly to keep the shot out.
Pape Matar Sarr drilled a low shot wide as Spurs went in search of a winner but it looked as if they may have lost a key component of their bid to win it when Postecoglou decided to withdrawn Son on the hour – presumably to protect the Korean, who is only just back from a calf injury.
As it turned out, Ange knew best. Solanke was going to make sure there would be a happy ending for the hosts, with Maddison supplying the icing on the cake after coming off the bench to clip a free-kick over the wall and beyond Martinez.
Spurs: (4-3-3) Vicario – Porro, Romero (Davies 61), Dragusin, Udogie (Gray 82) – Kulusevski, Bentancur (Bissouma 56), Sarr – Johnson, Solanke, Son (Richarlison 56) (Maddison 82)
Villa: (4-2-3-1) Martinez – Cash (Carlos 61), Konsa, Torres, Digne – Onana, Tielemans (Kamara 81) – McGinn (Bailey 81), Rogers (Duran 69), Ramsey (Philogene 81) – Watkins
