Tottenham earned a 2-1 win over Aston Villa.
Joao Palhinha produced one of his best performances since donning that Tottenham crest on his shirt. His excellent outing on the road at Villa Park helped Roberto De Zerbi & Co stun Aston Villa into a 2-1 win last Sunday. Conor Gallagher and Richarlison found themselves on the scoresheets as Spurs finally found a way out of that drop zone for the first time since October.
Emery rotations played into Tottenham hands
Unai Emery put through a side with seven changes being made from the team that lost to Nottingham Forest in the midweek.
It exactly played out in Tottenham’s hands as it gave the Lilywhites a much softer game than Spurs supporters would have expected ahead of one of the most important games in the club’s recent history given it could decide the context to relegation going into the final three games of the season.
And stats told the story about how Tottenham did dominate Villa in their own den as the visitors boasted 55% possession while having 10 shots to the five from Villa, which generated 0.99 expected goals against a 0.32 xG of the Villans.
Palhinha had a strong outing vs Aston Villa
And while those numbers give us a glimpse of how good Tottenham were yesterday, there were many standouts, and among those was a certain Joao Palhinha, who had a strong game in Spurs’ midfield. He had 10 defensive contributions while playing in that second phase while coming out on the better side in four duels and maintaining a 90% pass accuracy across the 90 minutes. (via. Fotmob)
Every time Villa tried to build through the middle, the Bayern Munich loanee shut it down before it could find itself on the threatening side of things.
And speaking in an exclusive interview with Tottenham News, former scout Bryan King had words of praise for the former Fulham midfielder but went on to claim that Villa made life easy for Palhinha. He said:
“When he first came to Tottenham, everyone regarded him as a top player. He won’t have believed how easy things were against Villa. He looked lively and was proud to wear the shirt. It’s been a long time since players have been like that, rather than being afraid.
“There are still three games to go, and there’s still pressure on him to perform.”
This win over Villa means Tottenham are finally out of the relegation zone with three games to go. In those three games, Tottenham host Leeds at home before they go to their London neighbours, Chelsea. Tottenham end their season away at Everton.
And ideally after you watch that Tottenham game against Villa, all of the above three feel like a winnable game.
And for Palhinha, he would be hoping that his performance against Villa finally pushes Tottenham to make a move for him, given that the club has been pondering whether to invest in his signing on a permanent transfer or rather get a younger target instead.