FA Premiership/Aston Villa - 1 Tottenham Hotspur - 0: Tottenham Hotspur's travails under new coach Martin Jol continued last night as Aston Villa continued to make a nonsense of manager David O'Leary's claims that his squad is not strong enough to sustain a challenge for the Champions League.
The win, achieved without the likes of Darius Vassell, Martin Laursen and Lee Hendrie, extended Villa's unbeaten run to five and lifted them to fifth in the table. The defeat was the sixth in a row for Spurs and leaves them only two points shy of the relegation zone.
But had it not been for the excellence of Villa goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen, Spurs could have been celebrating their first win under the Dutch coach.
O'Leary made one enforced change, giving a full debut to Steven Davis because Hendrie was suspended. O'Leary's pre-match comments that suggested Davis had been included because of the lack of depth to his squad was hardly a vote of confidence in the 19-year-old Northern Irishman.
By contrast, Jol's decision to retain the defence that had imploded so spectacularly in the north London derby did suggest the Dutch coach was happy with his back four.
Elsewhere, he made two changes, replacing Reto Ziegler with Thimothee Atouba and preferring Frederick Kanoute at the expense of Robbie Keane.
Encouragement for Villa came in a three-man move that saw Juan Pablo Angel outjump Noureddine Naybet with ease to nod Gavin McCann's diagonal cross into the path of Carlton Cole. He scuffed his shot and was adjudged offside, but the gremlins in the visiting defence were plain to see.
Not that there was much cohesion up front either when Erik Edman and Jermain Defoe made a nonsense of a free-kick routine and the ball ended up being passed to referee Chris Foy. Then Naybet atoned by hacking the ball to safety after Paul Robinson, diving to his right, parried Cole's cross shot.
Jol was forced to make a change at half-time, replacing Edman with Ziegler, who played on the left of the middle four with Atouba moving to right-back.
The effect of the changes appeared minimal. Indeed, had it not been for another superb save from Sorensen to keep out a low, diagonal shot on the turn by Defoe, Spurs' enterprise would have been justly rewarded.
To say Villa's goal came against the run of play was something of an understatement. It followed a corner taken by Thomas Hitzlsperger that Kanoute failed to head clear. Instead, the ball found Nolberto Solano, who, with the defence statuesque, was afforded the time to execute a spectacular left-footed scissors-kick.
ASTON VILLA: Sorensen, De la Cruz, Mellberg, Delaney, Samuel, Solano (Luke Moore 86), McCann, Davis, Hitzlsperger (Barry 76), Cole, Angel. Subs Not Used: Postma, Whittingham, Ridgewell. Goals: Solano 57.
TOTTENHAM: Robinson, Naybet, King, Pamarot, Edman (Ziegler 45), Carrick, Pedro Mendes (Keane 69), Atouba, Brown, Defoe (Davenport 83), Kanoute. Subs Not Used: Fulop, Redknapp.
Referee: C Foy (Merseyside).
