Tottenham fell to defeat against Aston Villa despite creating chances aplenty and one stat when it came to their captain hints as to why
Son Heung-min in action during the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa
Tottenham Hotspur fell to their third straight defeat on Sunday after going 10 Premier League matches unbeaten on Sunday and a dive into the numbers of the game against Aston Villa gives a hint as to why.
Spurs had 18 shots at goal, eight of them on target and forced Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez into six saves. The hosts also hit the woodwork twice and had three Son Heung-min ‘goals’ ruled out for offside. On the day Tottenham had 62% of the possession, attempting 564 passes to Villa’s 324, but in the end the scoreline is all that mattered as Pau Torres and Ollie Watkins netted the goals that cancelled out Giovani Lo Celso’s 22nd minute strike.
The problem for Ange Postecoglou’s side perhaps lay in the lack of times they managed to get the ball to their high value forwards Son and Brennan Johnson and when they did, the ball was often hit just too late – playing a part in Son’s three offside goals – or too early in the case of Dejan Kulusevski’s ball across to Johnson in the second half which was inches ahead of the £47.5m deadline day signing.
Despite all of Spurs’ bright attacking play, they did not use their captain or Johnson enough. Son touched the ball just 32 times and Johnson 39 times during their 90 minute stints on the turf. To put that into context, Rodrigo Bentancur touched it 34 times in just 31 minutes of action and Bryan Gil, making his first start since April, touched it 64 times in his 70 minutes on the pitch.
That’s not to absolve both Son and Johnson completely of blame as the game is also about being clinical when the ball does come your way as Ollie Watkins only had 26 touches of the ball in his 91 minutes but scored what would prove to be the winning goal. Son proved that himself earlier in the season with his brace at Arsenal.
Tottenham have scored 25 goals so far, the seventh-highest tally in the Premier League. Now above them in the table and in fourth place, Villa have netted 31 goals in their first 13 matches in the competition so far.
Spurs should have more goals than they have because they have fired 210 shots at goal this season, with only Liverpool (225) and Manchester City (214) having had more. Villa are in fourth with 194 while table-topping Arsenal have had just 189, showing their clinical edge.
In all Tottenham have managed 77 shots on target, again beaten only by City (93) and the same as Brighton and the stats show that the north London outfit have missed 20 big chances so far this season.
It is clear that Postecoglou’s team must turn chances into goals and getting the ball at the feet of their main forwards would be a big step towards that.
