Tottenham 2, Aston Villa 1: Mat Kendrick's big match verdict

Oct 4 2010

PASS. Pass. Pass. If ‘Gerard Houllier’s Aston Villa’ was a specialist subject on Mastermind then the regular reply would be ‘pass’.

Not ‘pass’ in the sense of unanswered questions, although exactly how Villa will ultimately respond to the Frenchman’s footballing philosophy is unknown.

But rather ‘pass’ in the sense of constantly striving to give the ball to another claret and blue shirt.

What is Houllier’s approach to bringing the best out of the Villa squad he inherited from Martin O’Neill? Pass. How will he expect Villa to recover from his first defeat at Spurs against Chelsea? Pass. Which method will he use to establish if the players possess the ability to follow his masterplan? Pass.

It is what his assistant Gary McAllister shouts relentlessly from the dug-out. It is what first-team coach Gordon Cowans has preached throughout his career. It is the claret and blue buzzword that the new regime have introduced to training sessions. PASS!

To accuse Villa of being a long-ball team under O’Neill would be as misplaced as describing Houllier’s team of always playing free-flowing, total football.

But the new intention to show more invention and move the ball from defence, through midfield, to attack and not “skip stations”, as Houllier describes it, is encouraging – providing Villa don’t get ideas above their station, that is.

It is an approach which should have gleaned at least a point at White Hart Lane rather than resulting in Houllier’s honeymoon period unjustly ending after wins over Blackburn and Wolves.

Emile Heskey, the inspiration behind Houllier’s early success, was at it again, only this time he was scorer-turned-creator, brilliantly bullying Sebastien Bassong to set up Marc Albrighton for a tap-in opener on 16 minutes.

Although the result ultimately took the gloss off Albrighton’s first senior goal for his beloved boyhood club, Saturday’s match highlighted the disparity between the depth and quality of Villa and Spurs’ squads and underlined the need for claret and blue starlets like young Marc to keep shining.

When Heskey limped off towards the end of the first half to be replaced by the similarly injury-prone John Carew with Gabby Agbonlahor also out for groin surgery, it exposed Villa’s striker shortage – a bit like the one which prompted England coach Fabio Capello’s fruitless attempt to bring Heskey straight back out of international retirement last week.

Spurs, meanwhile, had the luxury of leaving Robbie Keane as an unused sub on the bench and didn’t seem to miss the injured Jermain Defoe as Peter Crouch, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Harry Redknapp’s array of attacking midfield talent probed away at Villa.

Rafael van der Vaart’s devastating ‘Double Dutch’ contribution of a match-winning brace showed that Houllier is simply not blessed with that degree of talent in the centre of the park. That is in no way a slight on Nigel Reo-Coker – and if retention is so important to Houllier then he could do worse than retain Villa’s Reo-naissance midfielder upon learning that his contract is up next summer.