May 1, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nVilla followed up a 1-0 defeat to Fulham last time out in the league with a loss in their Europa League semi-final first leg against Nottingham Forest by the same scoreline.<\/p>\n
The Villans are eight points clear of sixth-place Brighton, and with two potential avenues into the Champions League still available for Unai Emery\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
But the Spaniard insisted Villa will not take Spurs lightly as he expects a tough battle at Villa Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach match in the Premier League is very difficult,\u201d said Emery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have very good players, and they have a very good coach. Maybe they will need time to set the tactical things he [De Zerbi] did in Brighton, which were really fantastic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he will do it, but now they are trying to escape the bottom, and they need points more than playing in a strong structure or idea he is usually doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have experienced players, good players, and I expect a very difficult match. I expect in 90 minutes to play competing in our best way, tactically and in our structure through the players individually and collectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
PLAYERS TO WATCH<\/strong><\/p>\nAston Villa \u2013 Ollie Watkins<\/strong><\/p>\n10 of Ollie Watkins\u2019 11 Premier League goals this season have come since the start of December; no player has more in that time.<\/p>\n
He has also scored goals in three previous Premier League games against sides managed by De Zerbi, including a hat-trick in September 2023.<\/p>\n
Tottenham \u2013 Richarlison<\/strong><\/p>\nRicharlison is averaging 0.72 goal involvements per 90 this season (nine goals, four assists in 1,615 minutes).<\/p>\n
It is his third-best rate in a Premier League campaign behind 2023-24 and 2024-25 (both 0.9 per 90).<\/p>\n
MATCH PREDICTION \u2013 ASTON VILLA WIN<\/strong><\/p>\nVilla won this exact fixture 2-0 last season, last beating Spurs in consecutive home league games in May-November 2004.<\/p>\n
Tottenham have lost six of their last 10 Premier League games against Villa (W4), more than they had in their previous 34 against the Villans (W19 D10 L5).<\/p>\n
None of the last 21 Premier League meetings between Villa (seven wins) and Spurs (14) have finished level.<\/p>\n
Only Chelsea v Crystal Palace (26 between September 1997 and February 2024) has had a longer run with no draws in the competition\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
However, Villa have won just two of their previous seven Premier League games (D1 L4), suffering as many defeats as in their prior 24 matches (W15 D5), though they could win three in a row at home for the first time since January (run of eight).<\/p>\n
OPTA WIN PROBABILITY<\/strong><\/p>\nAston Villa \u2013 59.9%<\/p>\n
Draw \u2013 21%<\/p>\n
Tottenham \u2013 19.1%<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Read More<\/a>SoccerNews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soccer Roberto De Zerbi insisted he does not want \u201closers\u201d near him as Tottenham look to survive in the relegation battle. Spurs ended a 15-game winless run against Wolves last time out (1-0) and could record successive victories in the Premier League for the first time since their opening two matches of this season against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":902905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4362,2005,97279],"tags":[11167,97278],"class_list":["post-902904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-losers","category-soccer","category-zerbi","tag-losers","tag-zerbi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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