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Thomas Frank Spurs rescue Tottenham after slipping to another home defeat Premier League With a 2–1 defeat to Aston Villa.
Rodrigo Bentancur Spurs went ahead after five minutes, but they failed to get off to a strong start with Morgan Rodgers’ first goal for Villa in 20 matches being able to level matters in the 37th minute.
Chances prevailed in the second half until Villa substitute Emiliano Buendia caused the north London club further domestic trouble when he headed the ball through a crowd of bodies after 77 minutes.
New boss Frank has seen two defeats in his first four home league fixtures at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, adding to his disappointing overall record of the last 12 months.
The defeat became Spurs’ three wins from their last 18 home league matches.
Asked if he could explain that form, Frank said: “I hope I can. Maybe it’s not that simple.
“(It’s) a game that’s a draw. A clear draw and we could have easily won it instead of Villa and then it’s a different story. So, I look at the performance on the pitch – we performed well and I’ll look at the parts we need to improve on.”
Spurs lost captain Cristian Romero to an adductor issue in the warm-up, but made a bright start as Joao Palhinha played down Mohamed Qudus’s superb cross before Bentancur drilled home from eight yards.
Kudus had the ball in the net two minutes later but it was ruled out for offside before Wilson Odobert tested Emi Martínez, but Villa equalized when Rodgers released Xavi Simmons and let fly with a dipping shot from 20 yards.
Mathis Tell missed an opening late in the first half, before Odobert’s effort was blocked on the line by Ezri Konsa.
villa boss unai emery Buendia and Ollie Watkins responded and – while Frank set up Lucas Bergvall and Randal Kolo Muani with about five minutes to go on the touchline – Spurs were punished.
Matty Cash’s brilliant crossfield half-volley was blown out of the air lucas digneWho gave Buendia a tough fight and he fired into the bottom corner to ensure a fifth consecutive win for the visitors.
“I think we did pretty well. Maybe not very well,” Frank said. “We gave away eight shots? More or less not even a cross. Very, very low XG (expected goals) and (Guglielmo) Vicario had no saves.
“If you had told me before the game that ‘they will shoot from there, Rodgers and Buendia’, then from that position, I would have said, ‘of course, it is not dangerous’, but there is a shot of great quality from Rodgers.
“Those very short moments, ultimately there was more quality to them.”
Villa started the campaign with a run of five league fixtures without a win, but despite a major success at Tottenham, Emery still expects more from his team.
Emery said: “There is still a lot to do and the players still have to raise their level because they are coming after injuries and we have some injured.
“We learned that last year, in the second half of the season, we were playing great and we had a lot of players in different positions who were ready to play and help get 30 minutes of play.
“Today is an example. 30 minutes of Watkins and Buendia, they did a fantastic job. We competed brilliantly today and through the quality of the players involved, we won.”