Tottenham Hotspur vs Aston Villa

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is the venue as Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa lock horns in a mid-table Premier League fixture.

Fresh from a 5-1 thrashing of Slovenian outfit Mura in the Europa Conference League, Tottenham will be looking to translate their solid continental form to domestic football. A hat-trick of 1-0 Premier League victories back in August had put ‘Spurs’ alone at the summit heading into September’s international window. However, Nuno Espirito Santo’s men have stumbled out of the blocks on the back of the restart in September, suffering three consecutive league defeats by an aggregate scoreline of 9-1 to slip to the bottom half of the table. The Londoners now stare at the prospect of losing four straight top-flight matches for the first time since November 2004. That prospect looks well in the realm of possibility, considering they fell to a 2-1 reverse in this exact fixture last season.

Meanwhile, Aston Villa are gunning for their second successive Premier League victory over Tottenham for the first time since September 2008, whilst they last won back-to-back league H2Hs in London in August 1995. There is plenty of reason for optimism in the traveling camp, as the ‘Lions’ head into proceedings on the back of consecutive Premier League triumphs over Manchester United and Everton without conceding. Villa last put together three consecutive top-flight wins ‘to nil’ in December 2009. Additionally, the Midlanders have racked up three victories across their last seven Premier League visits to London (D1, L3), as many as they had in their previous 29 travels to the capital in the competition (D4, L22). But, they have suffered ten defeats in their last 12 top-flight meetings with Tottenham (W2), succumbing to a 2+ goal margin eight times in the process.