Aston
Villa
(Away)
It all started badly for Calum Davenport, on a ground where he saw his first action for Tottenham and continued in much the same vein for the remainder of his time on the pitch. In the first minute Angel, who also had a major influence on the result, lifted his foot and made connection with Davenport's nose, which he broke. He continued to play on with bloody cotton wool trying to staunch the flow of blood, which precipitated him changing shirts three times.
While not in greats coring form, Jermain Defoe looks sharp enough up front at the moment, as he took Danny Murphy's pass, turned neatly and was thwarted with a curling effort by Taylor's save. Villa's front two were lively too, with Baros setting up Angel for a shooting opportunity, but it was a routine save for Robbo, as it was hit straight at him. Spurs were passing the ball well and created good openings, but failed to take them, in what is becoming the story of the season.
Murphy floated in a free-kick and Jenas knocked it on, with Dawson coming in at the far post, all he had to do was get it on target, but he hit the post with his header and the chance was gone. Jenas then had a drive go wide himself from distance, while another good opportunity came from another Murphy free-kick. From a similar position, he put it in again and Davenport flicked the ball on to the far post, where Hossam Ghaly came in and Taylor just got to the shot before the ball hit the post.
It was nearly all Tottenham and Zokora opened up the play by bringing Ghaly into play, from which he set up Berbatov, who curled a shot from the edge of the box over the top, then Defoe harried Hughes to intercept his clearance, then headed for goal and only another good effort by Taylor beat away his drive. Jermaine Jenas put Taylor under more pressure with a shot from a long way out, but it bounced nastily in front of the keeper, who had to hang onto it.
Just before the break, Villa started to get into the game a bit more and Angel first had a shot that curled wide and then found himself in the box, but looked at a loss as to what to do and the opening passed without any threat to the Tottenham goal.
The second half started much the same as the first, with Angel once more getting amongst our centre-halves, this time catching Dawson on the head with his knee and he stunned Michael, who had a similar knock against Portsmouth in the last game. While Daws tried to play on, he only lasted a couple of minutes and had to leave the field to be replaced by Paul Stalteri, who went straight to his accustomed right-back position, with Pascal Chimbonda moving inside to centre-half. To add to the misery, Ghaly was booked for a foul on Baros, with this being a continuation of his first half performance, when he might well have picked up a yellow card earlier. It proved to be his last involvement, as he pulled a hamstring and was soon replaced by Aaron Lennon, coming back into the team much sooner than thought after his cartilage operation.
Gavin McCann let fly from a long way out and his shot went high over the crossbar, while Angel volleyed wide before substitute Didier Agathe crossed for starlet Gabriel Agbonlahor to head at the far post, but Chimbonda did well to block and Robinson finished it off by pushing the ball away. But Spurs hit back with Defoe taking on the defence and hitting a shot too high, then Murphy tested Taylor with a shot before the action too off.
As Agbonlahor broke through chasing Angel's header, Calum Davenport challenged and looked not to have touched the striker, but referee Atkinson decided otherwise and pointed to the spot. To add insult to injury, he also produced the red card for Davenport, as he was deemed to be the last defender and therefore, Spurs were reduced to ten men. Having to face a penalty too, things looked bad, but as Juan Pablo Angel stepped up to take it, his nerve must have gone (having missed from the spot already this season) and his shot went high and wide of Paul Robinson's goal. Relief was felt throughout the big Spurs support, but they could not have dreamed what would happen next.
Within 90 seconds the game was turned on it's head. Tottenham went up the other end and without looking threatening won a corner on the right wing. Jermain Defoe swung it in and rising at the near post, it was headed into the net by ... Angel !! Spurs were 1-0 ahead through the most unlikely of means and when you saw that there were nine (count them) Villa players between the goal and the nearest Spurs player, it is hard to see how it happened, but we were pleased it did, as we were having trouble scoring ourselves. All we had to do then was hang on with ten men.
Easier said than done for Spurs. Davids replaced Berbatov as Jol went for one up front, but this did not help, as it allowed Villa to step up the pace and attack Spurs for the remaining 15 minutes. Defoe had a shot saved soon after the goal, but the attacks from the home side came in quick succession and Tottenham held out for five minutes before Gareth Barry cut in from the left to curl a delightful goal from the edge fo the box with his right foot over Robinson and in to level the scores.
It was after this that Robbo came into his won and showed why is ENO. While Stilian Petrov was wide with one effort on goal from around the penalty spot, he was on target near the end. Barry's cross fell and sat up nicely for Angel to strike a full-bloodied shot from ten yards out, but the Spurs keeper stood tall and palmed the ball up into the air and was quick enough to get up to save Petrov's rebound effort.
Spurs did have one final chance when Defoe raced through on goal, but was pulled back by the linesman's flag, although the Tottenham striker looked like he was in his won half when the ball was passed to him.
A draw seemed to be a fair result on the face of it, but it was a game that could have yielded more for Tottenham and with a bit more adventure (helped by the return of Lennon), hopefully we might be able to make more of the sort of domination we had in this game.
