More than half a billion pounds spent between them, for just three points and one goal. Aston Villa and Tottenham meet at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday still searching for their first Premier League win of the season, with the past two Europa League winners sitting in the bottom four of the early table.
Between them the two clubs have spent more than £500m this summer. Villa have brought in 10 new players at a cost of more than £250m, while Tottenham have also added 10 for more than £300m. That a summer of change at both clubs has not brought immediate results is no great surprise — but both need to ignite their season.
At Villa, Unai Emery has credit in the bank. He turned the club from a side floundering in mid-table into Europa League winners, has qualified for Europe every season since his arrival and got them back into the Champions League this year. This term the remit is different: to be successful while integrating 10 new players following six key sales, including Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins.
Emery conceded he did not know exactly why Villa lost control during last Saturday’s defeat by Nottingham Forest, but acknowledged he was unable to make a significant impact from the touchline with so many new players still fitting into their new set-up. He can look frantic in his technical area during games, yet has an impressive ability to decompress immediately and speak to the players calmly by the time he has returned to the dressing room. He remains confident Villa will improve, and is relying on the senior pair of John McGinn and Tyrone Mings to help him and the squad through a difficult patch. Both played in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup win at Coventry rather than being rested.
Captain McGinn has previously described learning Emery’s methods as doing “a lot of homework”. That may explain why Aaron Wan-Bissaka has struggled in his opening three games as he tries to adapt quickly — and the same may apply to other new signings perhaps overthinking their roles.
An extended three-week break follows Saturday’s match, and Emery will not get the much-needed time on the training ground with his squad, as many players head off on international duty. “This break is crazy because it’s three weeks,” Emery said. “I don’t like to be three weeks but we must accept it. We are not going to have the players we want. Manzambi played the first two matches with us and Saturday the third and then he goes with the national team. Back with us, we must again try to join him with us in our structure and his mind will maybe be confused. We don’t want to use the international break as an excuse. Saturday is very important as we lack points but we continue in our process trying to work as well as possible.”
Manzambi, brought in from Freiburg, and £47m winger Ibrahim Mbaye, who has moved from Paris St-Germain, made their debuts last weekend as substitutes against Forest and are set to form part of a new attack. Nicolas Jackson, signed from Chelsea in August, will start on Saturday after coming off the bench at Coventry as Emery edges towards his preferred line-up, with Villa looking to click after notching just one point from their opening four games.
The early numbers underline the scale of the task. Only Villa, with 3.39, have a worse expected goals tally in the Premier League so far this season than Spurs’ 3.45. Alysson’s header in the 2-1 defeat by Forest was Villa’s first goal in the Premier League this term, with Spurs still searching for theirs. Villa have had the lowest number of shots in the division with 33, compared to Tottenham’s 51, while their six on target is also the worst in the top flight, followed by Spurs’ 12. Only Hull have had fewer touches in the box than Villa’s 62.
Yet Villa’s defence must still be wary of a struggling Spurs side despite the hosts’ lack of goals. Matty Cash is available after recovering from a muscle problem, but fellow defenders Pau Torres and Ian Maatsen are out for a match in which Villa can expect to face pressure. Only Manchester United, Arsenal, Brighton and Liverpool have made more passes in the final third than Tottenham (617), who have the highest successful pass completion rate at 81.4%. Villa’s tally of 32 crosses, meanwhile, is the lowest in the league — half as many as Tottenham have managed.
It has now been 407 minutes since Spurs last scored in the Premier League. They have failed to score in four successive league matches — the first time that has happened since September 2006 — and their stalemate with Everton was their first goalless draw at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the Premier League after 140 games.
Despite both sides’ struggles in front of goal, history does not point to a 0-0 draw. None of the past 22 Premier League meetings between Spurs (15 wins) and Aston Villa (seven) has been drawn.