Tottenham dumped out of top four after home loss to Villa

Douglas Luiz tapped in gently to hand Villa a 2-0 lead at Tottenham on Sunday in their premier league encounter. Villa won 2-0. (Photo credit: Premierleague.com)

Unai Emery’s revolution took a huge step forward on New Year’s Day with a mind-blowing 2-0 win over Tottenham at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, leaving Spurs manager Antonio Conte fuming at how his players turned up for the game.

World Cup winning goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez was in the squad but Rob Olsen was trusted by Emery to start in goal. Spurs endured a torrid start and in the space of eight minutes, all three center-backs went into the referee’s book for poorly timed tackles.

The visitors managed the game so well that it took Harry Kane almost twenty minutes to have a touch of the ball but the England striker had the only clear-cut chance of the first half when Bryan Gil who was making his first start for Spurs rounded the keeper and lobbed for Kane but his goal-bound effort was headed away by Ashley Young on the line.

Villa took the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half, keeping Spurs at bay and winning the second balls; Douglas Luiz fired one on goal five minutes after the restart, but it was fumbled by Hugo Lloris unto the path of Ollie Watkins, the Villa striker fed Emiliano Buendia and the rest is 1-0 to Villa.

One became two not long after as Douglas Luiz himself got on the end of a nice John McGinn pass, his deft first touch took it away from Lloris and he slotted home with ease, you’d wonder how he got so much space in behind the Spurs defense.

The two goals conceded made it the seventh straight game that Conte’s men would concede two and the eighth straight game that they would concede the first goal in a game, their longest run since they conceded twice in eight games in 1988.

Spurs are now out of the top four, sitting in fifth and in dire danger of losing the fifth spot if Liverpool wins their outstanding game. Tottenham, having played a game more is now thirteen points off Arsenal at the top of the table.

Up next for Conte’s men is a trip to Crystal Palace on Thursday, the Italian manager would desperately wish Dejan Kulusevski is fit to play after he missed out on the home loss to Villa due to an unknown problem, he’s set to undergo a scan on Monday.