After 45 minutes in north London, Tottenham Hotspur’s supporters must have been thinking ‘not again’. Manager Ange Postecoglou was probably thinking the same.
The Lilywhites were a goal down to Aston Villa, courtesy of Morgan Rogers’ prod home from, you guessed it, a corner, and were well and truly second best against what appeared to be a well-drilled Unai Emery side.
But Villa have an unhealthy habit of capitulating under pressure – unless they are playing in the Champions League, in which case everything is spiffing – while Spurs have a rather healthier habit of turning Postecoglou’s no doubt scathing half-time words into something rather positive.
On this particular occasion, Tottenham not only showed why Emery was right to say they are favourites to qualify for next season’s Champions League ahead of Villa, they showed grit, steel and quality from the bench to turn the game on its head – captain Son Heung-min’s withdrawal after 55 minutes strangely the catalyst for Spurs’ performance level to ratchet up a notch.
The challenge for Spurs is to not put themselves in such a difficult position – namely, stop conceding the first goal at home – but a prosperous season lays ahead if their three best performers on the day continue to shine brightly.
Rating: 8/10
Dejan Kulusevski can feel a little aggrieved to not be named as one of Spurs’ best players but, let’s be honest, the Swede isn’t going to read this.
If for some miraculous reason he does, he’ll no doubt be full of appeciation for the relentless running machine that is Brennan Johnson. The Welshman’s contribution often goes under the radar but he offers so much to Spurs’ attacking play under Postecoglou.
Moreover, Johnson has got those all-important natural instincts when it comes to getting on the end of a cross. Son did the hard work, flashing a tremendous ball across Emi Martinez’s six-yard box, but the 23-year-old still needed to get ahead of Lucas Digne to turn it home.
That he did, instigating a tremendous turnaround for Spurs.
Rating: 8/10
This website has previously written about Postecoglou handing Pape Matar Sarr the keys to drive his 100-mile-per-hour Tottenham car.
The very loose translation of that is Sarr is a player capable of taking a game by the scruff of the neck, affecting its outcome by being able to do basically everything. Run, pass, win the ball back, repeat.
Here, Sarr did that, quickening the game to a pace that Villa couldn’t handle, and his perfect reading of Pau Torres’ sloppy pass set in motion the attack that would lead to Spurs’ third goal.
Rating: 9/10
Unless you’ve got the scoring power of Erling Haaland, Cole Palmer or Mohamed Salah, chances are somebody is calling you waste a money because you’re not delivering every week.
That’s certainly a label that’s been thrown the way of Dominic Solanke – Spurs’ potential club-record signing for a total fee in the region of £65m. Sure, the 27-year-old would like to have shown more in his past seven Premier League outings in white, but he’s another player who has the ability to influence the game in different ways.
Turning it on when it really matters is what Spurs fans will hold dearest and that’s exactly what Solanke did here. First, he ghosted in behind Villa’s defence with a tremendously timed diagonal run, before dinking the ball over Martinez with a delicately deft finish.
Then, four minutes later, Solanke recognised that he needed to hang back oh so slightly in order to turn home Richarlison’s centre four minutes later. To say it was Harry Kane-esque may be a step too far, but it was top-draw play nevertheless.
