Football with Faris: The week’s hottest stories from the beautiful game

ASTON Villa are continuing to overachieve and surprise everyone. Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur are still on a rollercoaster that took a dramatic dip recently and may need a rethink.

Aston Villa woken from their slumber

Failed managerial spells from Dean Smith and Steven Gerrard presented sleeping giants Aston Villa as an underwhelming outfit in the Premier League. '

That was until Unai Emery took over from Gerrard on October 24, 2022. It’s safe to say it has been a remarkable turnaround since then.

In his first season, Emery took the Villains from 16th to a strong 7th place Europa Conference League finish. The following season, he led the club to an unprecedented fourth place in the Champions League, the first time the club qualified for the competition since 1983, back when it was dubbed the European Cup.

To put it into perspective, since Emery took over, Villa have achieved the fourth most points in the league, only behind titans Man City, Arsenal, and Liverpool.

Currently, the claret and blue side possess great quality in their team from the likes of the World Cup-winning goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, impressive centre-back Pau Torres, club captain John McGinn, and electric forwards Ollie Watkins, Jhon Duran, Morgan Rogers, and Leon Bailey.

Aston Villa also more than adequately replaced the big exit of Douglas Luiz in the summer, signing the midfield powerhouse Amadou Onana from Everton.

The club is poised to have another strong season, but accustoming to the new Champions League schedule could prove to be a roadblock if they look to make it back-to-back top-four finishes.

Emery also shouldn’t snub the domestic cups, as Villa haven’t won a major honour since 1996.

On the whole, Aston Villa are on an upwards trajectory, with the massive 1-0 victory over Bayern Munich in the Champions League proving just that.

Spursy night in Brighton

If there were ever a game to sum up Tottenham Hotspur in a nutshell, it was definitely their recent clash at the AMEX Stadium against Brighton and Hove Albion.

The popular phrase ‘it was a game of two halves’ was exactly how the match panned out. In the first half, Spurs were electric and found themselves 2-0 up, with in-form Brennan Johnson and talisman James Maddison getting on the scoresheet.

Brighton struggled to cope, and it looked like Spurs would get all three points heading into half-time. However, they say 2-0 is a dangerous scoreline in football, and Brighton proved why.

The Lilywhites came out in the second half a completely different team, with momentum shifting play. It was kamikaze defending from the whole Spurs back line, with especially poor performances from left-back Destiny Udogie and centre-back Micky Van de Ven.

It was an epic collapse, and the Seagulls seized the opportunity as they made a scintillating comeback, with new signings Yankuba Minteh and Georginho Rutter scoring alongside veteran Danny Welbeck, sealing the deal.

The towering header from the ex-Arsenal and Manchester United striker sent the AMEX into bedlam as Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou just stood there in disbelief.

Whilst the players must take accountability for giving away such cheap goals, questions should be raised over the manager. After all, the mindset stems from him—he was asked in his pre-match interview, ‘There's an expectation this might be an open contest. How do you keep it controlled?’ To which Ange replied: ‘We don't. Let's keep it open. That way we entertain everyone and hopefully get the result we want.’

Well, the game was certainly entertaining for Tottenham’s rivals. Those comments just scream naivety—Ange’s in-game management, late substitutions, and reluctance to adjust playstyle or even have a plan B mean he will only take Tottenham so far.

Adding to the pressure, he doubled down on his comment that he always wins something in his second season, setting the expectation he can end Tottenham’s trophy drought, which even serial winners José Mourinho and Antonio Conte couldn’t achieve.

This Spurs team is good on the eye in attack, but they just seem too nice and lack that siege mentality. They’ll want to mark this result down as a one-off and go again, or as a wise Italian defender once said, perhaps it is just the history of Tottenham.