Ollie Watkins’s Aston Villa smash and grab inflicts third straight loss on Spurs

Sometimes it is easy to be led by the scoreboard. This was a pulsating battle between two clubs energised by smart managerial appointments and there is a temptation to argue that the turning point came when Unai Emery was able to regroup from a position of relative comfort at half-time. Far too astute to be fooled by Pau Torres equalising after a spell of blistering football from Tottenham, Emery was proactive during the break and there is no doubt that Aston Villa were far more effective after introducing Youri Tielemans and Leon Bailey at the start of the second half.

The decisiveness was telling, not least because it was Tielemans who played the pass that enabled Ollie Watkins to put a disappointing display for England behind him and score the goal that lifted Villa two points off the top of the table. Yet while Watkins’s winner meant Emery’s side set a new club record of 22 Premier League wins in a calendar year, this was a game that could easily have gone either way. Take nothing away from Villa, who showed character to fight back from Giovani Lo Celso’s early goal, but do give credit to Spurs for fighting hard on the day when they digested the loss of their former manager, Terry Venables.