Will Spurs get their revenge in the FA Cup?
Fans, team, and coach are currently united at the Villans. Since his arrival in November 2022, Unai Emery has adapted the club to his ideas and established a style of play that has even seen the visitors get involved in the Premier League title race this season. Nevertheless, the Tottenham vs. Aston Villa tip leaves room for a possible surprise.
Thomas Frank is not yet loved by the Lilywhites’ supporters. Too often, the desired results have not been achieved so far. In the run-up to our Tottenham vs. Aston Villa prediction, the reigning Europa League winners failed to win in five of six competitive games (2D, 3L), even slipping to 14th place in the Premier League.
According to our research, this assumption is actually justified. If the Premier League table were based on expected points, both teams would be in the bottom third of the table, with the Lilywhites (14th) just ahead of the Villans (15th).
The third-round FA Cup clash marks the start of a crucial few weeks for Thomas Frank, in which he will likely be fighting for his job. Recently, the Danish coach has increasingly strengthened his team’s defensive play.
Teams have hardly had any quality chances against the Lilywhites recently. Tottenham conceded a maximum of 1.16 expected goals in four of their previous five competitive games, and even conceded less than one expected goal on three occasions.
Tottenham – Aston Villa Head-to-head record / H2H record
The teams from the English top flight will only enter the world’s oldest soccer cup competition in the third round. To kick things off, Spurs and the Villans have been handed a repeat of last year’s tie. Last year, Emery’s side narrowly prevailed 2-1 in the next round.
Including the two subsequent encounters in English Premier League soccer (2-0, 2-1), the third-placed team enters the third-round match with a series of three consecutive wins against the Lilywhites.
Tottenham – Aston Villa Tip
Mathys Tel gave Spurs an early lead in their last Premier League game against Bournemouth (2-3). From the left wing, he pushed his direct defender into the penalty area after a pass from Xavi Simons, took a quick step and finished with his right foot into the far corner. It was Spurs’ first goal from open play in almost 600 minutes of play.
The hosts are still struggling to create chances up front this season. In the Premier League, only Sunderland, Burnley, and Wolverhampton have scored fewer expected goals than Thomas Frank’s side (19.3 expected goals in 20 league games).
The Villans rely quite heavily on long-range shots in their attacking play. No other Premier League team has scored more goals from shots outside the box this season than Emery’s side (12). With a player of Morgan Rogers’ quality in the squad, they can certainly afford to try.
However, this leads to a relatively low quality of chances, which is only good enough for 13th place in the league comparison of all PL teams (24.0 xG). As we saw in the last PL matchday against Crystal Palace (0-0), there can easily be low-scoring encounters involving the Villans.
