Tottenham Hotspur: Spurs succumb to Villa smash and grab

Transcript

00:00 James, yesterday in the Premier League Spurs succumbed to a 2-1 loss at home to Aston Villa.

00:05 It was a game when, in a similar fashion to when Spurs lost at home to Chelsea, they started

00:11 really well, got themselves ahead, things went a little bit wrong in terms of injuries

00:16 in this one as opposed to sendings off in that one. And then you have a couple of disallowed

00:21 goals as well and then Villa strike late on and it's a bit of a smash and grab win. Obviously

00:27 all credit to Villa but again for Spurs, is it just a lack of composure and a lack of

00:33 being clinical in front of goal that's costing you the reward?

00:36 Yes, I mean on paper, three defeats in a row, it's not good is it in terms of the form but

00:42 it certainly doesn't tell the full picture. Spurs were breathtaking yesterday for large

00:46 spells, the football was absolutely outstanding. We had three goals, goals, inverted commas,

00:53 that were ruled out for offside, we hit the post twice and I think that's the only concern.

00:58 The performance was excellent considering the fact we had 10 players out injured. We

01:02 lost Benton Kerr as well after half an hour, he was absolutely running the show. Spoken

01:07 before about Benton Kerr, he's a Rolls Royce and brilliant to see him back for his first

01:12 start in nine months and then devastating to see him go off with an injury. Nasty tackle

01:16 as well actually I think that by Matty Cash, so fingers crossed he's OK. But that aside

01:22 and obviously the result, the performance was excellent. We hit the post in the first

01:27 few minutes with Kulosevski, should have scored, Son, almost making contact with the header

01:32 from across, just couldn't quite get on the end of it. I think that is the concern that

01:37 when we're on top we're not finishing teams off. It was very similar against Chelsea,

01:40 we started off like a train, got the goal, should have gone 2-0 up, maybe even 3-0 up.

01:47 So it's a classic tale at the minute of results perhaps not telling the full story and I think

01:52 to be honest with you, the team that Spurs are fielding at the moment, no recognised

01:56 centre-back in the line-up yesterday, four full-backs, four wingers. It was a brilliant

02:02 performance and we were really, really unlucky on the day. Take nothing away from Villa,

02:07 they were superb in the second half, they got a bit of a foothold in, we tired, we ran

02:11 out of steam a little bit. And Villa are a good side, they're going to be up there and

02:16 Ollie Watkins is an obvious threat, he took his goal really, really well, perhaps a little

02:21 bit of slack from Spurs in terms of defending but no shame in losing to Villa with the team

02:28 that we were able to field yesterday. But it's the injuries that are the concern and

02:34 the lack of being clinical in front of goal frankly. Son, again slightly off it yesterday,

02:39 he was pretty poor at Wolves as well, perhaps he's missing his mate Madison but we do need

02:45 him to start firing soon and really finishing teams off. I've no doubt we'll be absolutely

02:50 fine, we just need to get through this period, really, really tricky with so many injuries.

02:54 But once we start getting those players back, we're playing a terrific round of football,

02:59 we just need to maintain it for 90 minutes, finish teams off and we really should have

03:04 had a couple of wins there. On another day we would have beaten Villa quite comfortably,

03:08 we would have beaten Chelsea a couple of weeks ago quite comfortably but for the sort of

03:11 debacle that followed with the send-ins off etc. So, we're in good shape and that's a bit bizarre

03:17 and sort of strange to say when we've lost three on the bounce but I genuinely think we're going

03:21 in the right direction and there was some real positives to take from yesterday.