Aston Villa top Tottenham, 2-0, in New Years Day clash
Aston Villa opened 2023 with a 2-0 Premier League victory over Tottenham Hotspur on New Years Day.
After a scoreless first half, Villa scored twice on the other side of the break to help secure a first win in London this season.
Emi Buendia opened the scoring in the 50th minute, capping off a frantic sequence that begun with a Douglas Luiz screamer from way outside the box. Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris bobbled the save into the feet of a surging Ollie Watkins, who turned and fed Buendia for a tidy finish.
From there play opened up, and in the 73rd minute Luiz recovered the ball in the final third, played a give-and-go with John McGinn, and beat Lloris in front of goal to double the Villa advantage.
The win sees Villa move to 6-3-8 on the season as they hold onto 12th place with 21 points.
Spurs 0-2 Villa: a closer look
Villa out chanced Spurs, generating 1.07 expected goals (xG) to the hosts’ 0.51 on the back of an impressive second half display.
Ashley Young was bright at right back, and McGinn and Buendia — wide midfielders in a 4-4-2 formation — impressed in attack and defense.
But the stars of the show were Boubacar Kamara and Luiz, who made up a double pivot in central midfield. Kamara continued to show his quality as a top-notch ball-winner, and Luiz seemingly had his hand in everything.
The Brazilian boasted a 92% passing accuracy, 0.46 xG, and nine ball recoveries. He had a hand in both Villa goals and now has more goal contributions this season than Ilkay Gundogan, Bruno Fernandes, and Jack Grealish.
Manager Unai Emery said post-match: “We are so happy because we deserved to win.
“We played with the tactical discipline that we were speaking about in the days before the match. We did really good work and scored two goals. We got a clean sheet as well and Robin Olsen was fantastic.”
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