Unai Emery was hell-bent on lowering expectations ahead of Aston Villa’s trip to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Despite going into the contest five points and as many places above their hosts, Emery insisted: “They are the favourites [to finish] in front of us for the season and favourites for the match on Sunday.”
Spurs were not the only side the Spanish boss deemed to be more likely of qualifying for the Champions League than Villa. “They are favourites with Chelsea, with Manchester United, with Newcastle,” the manager said, pointing to “a big gap” between his team and the other challengers.
The only chasm that seemed to exist after a one-sided first half left Tottenham flailing behind Villa. Morgan Rogers fired in a 32nd-minute opener as Spurs failed to force Emiliano Martinez into a single save before the restart. However, Ange Postecoglou’s outfit emerged for the second half in inspired form.
Brennan Johnson fired the hosts level within five minutes of the restart before a quick-fire double from Dominic Solanke put this Champions League qualification clash beyond all doubt. James Maddison added an extra layer of gloss with a stoppage-time free-kick to ram home Emery’s doubts – the Villans downed 4-1 after a miserable second 45.
While Spurs are still suffering from the same problems – Rogers’ close-range punt from a corner was the 20th set-piece goal Tottenham have conceded since the start of last season – Villa seemed to have evolved beyond their defensive struggles.
Heading into the weekend’s fixtures, Villa boasted the second-lowest xG against tally in the division. Emery’s side – who ranked a lowly 13th for the same metric last term – had almost halved the quality of chances conceded by moving away from an aggressive high line.
Villa provoked the most offsides in Europe’s top five league last season, averaging 4.4 per game. That figure has dropped to 2.6 this term, yet they didn’t catch Spurs offside once on Sunday.
Both Johnson and Solanke timed their darts into Villa’s box perfectly, narrowly keeping all ten toes behind the deepest claret and blue shirt to turn the game around.
Beyond the malfunctioning offside trap, the most worrying aspect of Villa’s defensive display will be the way that they wobbled so violently after Johnson’s leveller. Solanke’s four-minute brace was the third time this season that Villa have shipped two goals in less than ten minutes.
Villa’s fast start to the season, suffering just one defeat from their opening nine league games, had been underpinned by the finishing hot streaks of their two strikers. Jhon Duran’s outrageous output – scoring with four of his first ten shots of the season – earned him a new contract but was never likely to last.
Ollie Watkins had managed to keep Duran on the bench by showing a clinical edge of his own, but that composure deserted him on Sunday. The boyhood Arsenal fan squandered two glorious first-half chances to put Villa out of sight, firing well wide from inside the box on both occasions.
Given that Emery’s side are not the most prolific chance creators, they can scarcely afford to waste scoring opportunities.
Ahead of Sunday’s match, Emery claimed that his side’s “budget is not enough to be favourites”.
Spurs have an almost identical wage bill to Villa, with both sides roughly spending £100m per year on player salaries. Five clubs – the expected trio of Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool together with Manchester United and Chelsea – have a bigger budget.
However, the division’s profit and sustainability restraints forced Villa to effectively break even in last summer’s transfer window. The arrival of Amadou Onana and Ian Maatsen had to be balanced by big-money moves to Moussa Diaby and Douglas Luiz.
Spurs boasted the fifth-largest net spent in the Premier League over the summer, with most of their three-digit outlay splashed on Dominic Solanke. The club’s record signing endured a slow start to life in N17, but has excelled in recent weeks, producing arguably his best performance of the campaign thus far on Sunday with two brilliantly taken goals.
Emery had found a little more hope immediately before kick off, revealing his dream of winning the Champions League “hopefully with Aston Villa”. There are few more wrinkles to iron out if they are to even qualify for next season’s competition.
