Aston Villa recorded a key victory over Tottenham Hotspur in the penultimate round of the 2024/25 Premier League campaign at Villa Park on Friday.
The game was a break and the goal was then scored, but Ezri Consana (57′) and Boubakar Kamala (73′) were hit for the home side, setting the final score 2-0.
team
Marcus Rashford and Youri Tielemans were unable to choose through the injury by villa boss Unai Emery.
Emiliano Martinez was between the posts, and Consa was paired with Poe Torres, at the centre of the defense, with Matt Cash on the right and Ian Matten on the left. In the middle of the park, Kamala was joined by Amadu Onana, with captain John McGinn supporting striker Ollie Watkins along with Morgan Rogers and Marco Asensio.
As for the Spurs, in the final final of the upcoming Europa League, coach Anjipost Ecoglow forced his team to apply a fair level of rotation. On top of that, Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison, Lucas Bergvall, Dane Scarlett, Timo Werner and Radu Dragusin were injured.
Antonin Kinski replaced Guglielmo Viario at the finish line. Ben Davis and Kevin Danso took a little rest for Christian Romero and Mickey Van de Ben. The DJed Spence covered the defensive side on the right, Sergio Reguilon, to the left. Archie Gray and Pape Matar Sarr were paired in the middle, with Mikey Moore and Wilson Odobert attacking from the flank, with captain’s son Heung-Min playing closest to striker Mathys Tel.
How did that happen?
The contest was pretty well balanced in the first half. The Villa had several opportunities, but most notably, they tried a cross that Kinski had to tilt over the bar, but the Spurs had the same moment.
Homeside carefully entered the second half, but when Consa finally broke the deadlock, they finally looked broken. Kamara’s amazing shot applied the finishing touches despite still having around 20 minutes of time.
With the Europa League finals clearly being so overwhelming their minds, visitors seemed lacking the right motivation to return to the contest, allowing Villa to finish the match without drama.
reaction
Speaking to the press after the match, Postecoglou confirmed that his team’s choices were also based on the upcoming European finals. He asserted that nothing wrong with Vicario, Van de Ben, Romero, Pedro Polo, Destiny Udogui and others, reinforcing his desire to make each of his priority backs available to the match that defines the season against Manchester United on Wednesday.
“They are available,” he said. “For us, there’s no point in bringing them in. They weren’t going to play today. They were home. They had a really good, strong session.
“I’ll come on Wednesday and they’re all available. That’s the most important thing. That was the main thing. When those guys play, the back four becomes the goal and our chances improve.”
When asked about the subject more, he simply added:
“Yeah, I don’t know how else to say it. They are available. If something happened to them today, I don’t think they’ll be available.
Meanwhile, Emery expressed satisfaction with his team’s performance and as satisfying as he did in the final match this season in front of his home supporters. He also said some nice words about the visitors, highlighting that the top five races weren’t over.
“I was so happy and today we closed our season with supporters trying to pass on our energy,” the Spanish coach said.
“We won, but there is still work to do to get the chance to play the Champions League, and we have to keep the contradictions down and focus.
“The Spurs competed a lot and did an amazing job, and we were talking halftime about the challenges we were facing.
Champions League Race
There’s really not much to say about the Spurs’ position at the Premier League table. However, he currently has just 38 points from 37 games, just above the already relegated trio of Ipwichtown, Leicester City and Southampton.
But for Villa, there’s everything they’ll play in next week’s final match. At the moment, he is fifth with 66 points, the same as the third Newcastle and the fourth Chelsea, but the Magpies have a match. Manchester City also got the match in sixth place, with a potential victory over Bournemouth and Fulham sealing off the Champions League location on Pep Guardiola’s side.
At this point it is highly likely that they will come down to the battle between Villa and Chelsea, facing Manchester United and Nottingham Forest in the final round, respectively. The target difference is highly supportive of London’s blues, but after the Europa League final, United may be easier to deal with than the forest chasing Europe.