Aston Villa v Tottenham: match preview, free football tips, odds & prediction

Free football tips, best bets and analysis for Aston Villa v Tottenham in the Premier League on Sunday.

Where to watch

Sky Sports, 2pm Sunday

Best bet

Tottenham
2pts 10-11 Betfred, Unibet

Team news

Aston Villa
Ezri Konsa and Danny Drinkwater are fit. Tom Heaton, John McGinn and Wesley are out.

Tottenham
Giovani Lo Celso and Erik Lamela are doubts. Harry Kane and Mo Sissoko are absentees.

Match preview

Aston Villa’s record of played seven, lost seven against the sides who went into this weekend in the top six won’t fill their fans with confidence going into their Premier League rematch with Tottenham.

Beaten 3-1 at the Tottenham Stadium on the opening weekend, Villa have found the division’s elite clubs tough nuts to crack on their return to the top flight.

Granted, they gave Spurs a run in that loss back in August and they pushed Liverpool as hard as anyone in a luckless 2-1 defeat to the champions-elect.

But games against Manchester City, Liverpool and Leicester have produced an aggregate scoreline of 3-12 and they have managed to keep just two clean sheets since the middle of September.

Spurs aren’t without flaws but they get the vote. Villa concede too many goals and manager Dean Smith is yet to figure out his best four – or five – in front of 37-year-old keeper Pepe Reina, whose mistake proved costly at Bournemouth last time out.

They were bullied by the Cherries (and that doesn’t happen to many teams) and that’s a real concern as they go up against an uber-physical Jose Mourinho outfit. Mourinho will have clocked how Phil Billing and Callum Wilson gave Villa’s lightweight bunch a real working over and will have planned accordingly.

Villa aren’t quite a one-man team but their survival hopes rest squarely on the shoulders of Jack Grealish, especially in the absence of the admirable John McGinn.

Frontman Mbwana Samatta is a physical presence and scored on his debut but the Tanzanian looked isolated and unclear of his role. A few extra days on the training ground will doubtless have helped his integration into a group who are crying out for someone to take the burden off Grealish.

Spurs, of course, are trying to mount a top-four assault in the absence of Harry Kane and they are making a decent fist of it.

Their results have perhaps been better than their performances but the bottom line is they are unbeaten in six, a sequence which includes a 2-0 win over Manchester City and FA Cup progress at the expense of Southampton. In neither match could you say Tottenham were the better team, but they showed the requisite nous and experience to deliver precious wins.

They have won only three of 18 away games in all competitions this season but they have lost just three of their last 11 road games, one of which was at Bayern Munich.

They are creating plenty of chances but are taking less of them since Kane’s injury, which is understandable. The visitors will certainly get chances at Villa, who are conceding 17.6 shots per game, far and away the highest total in the division.