Villa Park Victory
Both Aston Villa and Tottenham fielded second-string teams in their Capital One Cup third round clash, which ended in a 4-0 defeat for the home side. It was no surprise that Spurs, with their strengthened squad from the sale of Gareth Bale, were able to produce a comfortable victory against a Villa side without goalscoring talisman Christian Benteke.
A brace from Jemain Defoe, plus goals from summer signings Paulinho and Nacer Chadli, secured an impressive win for Spurs. They will face Premier League new boys Hull City in the next round of the Capital One Cup, just three days after the same fixture in the league competition. It will be interesting to see the difference between the teams Andre Villas-Boas and Steve Bruce choose for the league and cup games.
Tottenham dominated the first 45 minutes of the match, breaking the deadlock just before the end of the first half. A flowing move, after piling pressure on the Aston Villa defence, led to a chipped pass from midfielder Lewis Holtby into the path of Defoe who flicked the ball into the back of Jed Steer’s goal.
It was 2-0 to the away team just four minutes into the second period, when Paulinho managed to help an outswinging corner find its way into the goal, after a deflection from Villa’s left back Lowton.
With just four minutes left of the 90 minutes, two errors from Aston Villa’s holding midfielder Yacouba Sylla, helped turn the result into a rout for the away side. In the 86th minute Chadli netted his first goal for the club after a mistake by Sylla, which allowed Defoe to pick out the Belgian winger in space, who placed the ball with perfection, beating the Villa goalkeeper at his near post. Defoe completed his brace soon in injury time with a cool and calm finish, tapping the ball into the net after passing goalkeeper Jed Steer to make it 4-0.
It could have been a different result if the referee had sent off Tottenham’s Vertonghen after a strange incident involving him, an accidental tumble and Villa substitute Nicklas Helenius’ shorts. Helenius chased Lowton’s ball into the box causing the Spurs centre back, Vertonghen, to panic and lose his footing. As the Belgian fell to the floor he grabbed the strikers shorts and pulled them down to his keens causing him to strike the ball well over the bar. Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert was angered by the decision for referee John Moss to give a goal-kick rather than a penalty which would of surely resulted in a red card for the Tottenham player. It was just moments after this incident that the visitors scored their second through Paulinho, a decision which could of changed the course of the game.
