Aston Villa 0-2 Tottenham Hotspur: Late substitutes result in victory

Spurs beat Villa 2-0 on Sunday to move on to the 4th round of the FA Cup. Tottenham's goals came from Ben Davies (71’) and Heung-Min Son (80’). The subs for Spurs were Dele, N'Koudou and Onomah for Janssen, Toby and Sissoko.

The first half of the match was quite boring. Spurs only had 1 shot in the first half and while keeping over 65% of the possession. Aston Villa had more shots then Spurs did but were not able to create any real chances. In the first half Spurs mostly played with three in the back, which worked fine with Toby being as good as he is. There were a few bad performances in the first half with guys like Cameron Carter-Vickers and Vincent Janssen playing poorly. Janssen has had a lot of trouble during his time at Spurs and today was no better, with him getting dispossessed way too much for a hold up striker. CCV may just need more minutes to improve as a player. It’s not easy being the 5th option at center back.

The second half started much like the first half. Our attack was uninspired and sluggish. Things changed when Dele was subbed for Janssen at 60’. Our attack seemed to spring to life. The game still stayed 0-0 for the next 10 mins but after N'Koudou was subbed on for Toby in the 70’ we became too much for Villa to handle. The first goal came a minute after the sub when Dele made a smooth pass to N'Koudou on the wing, who then served up a cross to Davies to head it in. The next goal came less then 10 minutes later as Sissoko served up a great pass to Son to lock the match up. While Sissoko didn’t have a great match otherwise, these little flashes of brilliance show that maybe the investment in him isn’t all lost. Spurs ended the game with a few good chances on goal but nothing came of it as the match finished up 2-0.

The jump in quality from the first 60 minutes to the last 30 is really quite something. Spurs didn’t play anything close to a best XI, but the way the team played with Dele was so much different then without. Maybe this is an indictment of Janssen or an indicator of just how good Dele is. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. As for other notable performers this match, Harry Winks had a good 90 minute showing. While Winks didn’t have involvement with either of the two goals., he was a threat with the ball all game. Theres not much more to take away from the match. Both teams played bad for most of the match, with Spurs making the difference making subs to leave Villa in the dust.

The draw for the fourth round is tomorrow at 12:10 PM EST. There are some bullets to dodge such as United, Chelsea, and City, but still plenty of favorable draws from lower divisions that give Poch another opportunity to rotate m