Match Preview: Villa v Spurs

by Dek Hogan 

Where have your match previews been?
It was getting a bit depressing to have to write about how we've got no chance, week after week... took a break...

Who are we playing?
Spurs on Sunday 13th March at 4ish. Not on telly but playing Sunday because of Tottenham's Europa League commitments.

Where are we playing?
Villa Park, you may know where it is. The place with thousands of supporters streaming out well before the end, whether there's an organised protest or not.


Can I go?
Yep. Plenty of tickets left. Tons. Or check with your disillusioned season ticket holding pals. You may well cop a freebie.

Easy to get to?
Doddle, but be careful of the trains of a Sunday. Unreliable.

Can I watch it on telly?
Despite the Sunday kick off, we are not a designated live telly game in the UK so you'll need a stream or a pub with a dodgy dish...

Big game?
Massive for Spurs as they attempt to stop Leicester City from running away with the league.

However poorly we've been playing, Spurs are taking this one very seriously, resting several players in their game at Dortmund, which resulted in them taking a pasting from the German side.

They will chomping at the bit for this one, making it potentially a much harder game than our encounters with an average Liverpool outfit and a Man City team that never got out of second gear.

So can we cope? No of course we can't. We'll be second best in every area of the pitch and are likely to take a complete pasting.

It's great that in David Bernstein, we finally have a man who understands how football works. He was a much younger man when he set Manchester City on the path to recovery, but hopefully he can use his experience to at least start to turn things around at Villa Park and set us on the right course for some sort of future.

Great to see my boyhood hero Brian Little back at the club too.

Make no mistake though, there is a massive job to do at Villa Park, not least on the playing side, because frankly, if it were feasible, I'd ship out nearly all of the current playing staff.

Reality states that we may have to go into next season with a large chunk of the current squad, and poor beleaguered boss Remi Garde has demonstrated that he can't control them.

It's sad because I believe that Garde is a decent man with plenty to offer the game, but he's the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time at Aston Villa Football Club.

Typical Spurs fan

Do Spurs have any famous fans?
Well, there's Counsellor Troi off of Star Trek.

And Chas.

And Dave.

We've got fiddle playing scruffbox Nigel Kennedy.

So we win.

Who's playing for us?

Garde has already shown that he is not making major changes now, so expect the useless bunch of tosspots you've been watching for the last few weeks..

Who's playing for them?
Harry Kane will no doubt have a field day...

Any useless stats?

Of course, here you go:

• We have 56 wins against Spurs while they've beaten us 70 times with 35 draws

• Staggeringly, you have to go back to New Years Day 2008 for our last Villa Park win over Spurs, Olof Mellberg and Martin Laursen getting the goals.
  

• An unlikely away win at White Hart Lane last season proved vital in keeping us up. A solitary Christian Benteke goal settled it

Prediction
Going for a 5-0 Spurs win.