Spurs vs Aston Villa preview: Villa can get pulses racing

While last weekend’s 1-0 win at Manchester United felt every inch a landmark moment, Dean Smith’s team have the chance to make an even bigger statement at Tottenham.

What separates the really good sides, those which Villa aspire to emulate, from the merely decent is the ability to follow up big results with another.

Should Villa achieve that in north London, it will add further to sense something special is brewing in B6.

“I have alluded to the fact last Saturday was a good win and big for our fanbase in terms of the suffering they had experienced up at Old Trafford,” said Smith. “But in terms of the dressing room, they know there is no room for complacency. We have to go to Spurs and put in as good a performance as we did last week in order to get a result again.

“We believe we are capable of that but consistency needs to be there. We need to go and show that on Sunday.”

Tottenham will head into the match as favourites but it is more than a decade since Villa have been so heavily backed and that a victory could not be considered a shock is another indicator of their progress.

After winning their opening three matches under Nuno Espirito Santo, the hosts have lost the next three Premier League fixtures by a combined 9-1 scoreline but while the talk around Tottenham is of potential crisis, Smith is sceptical.

“It always makes me smile that a manager can win manager of the month one month and then a month later everyone’s talking about how they’re in crisis,” he said. “They’re certainly far from that.

“Yes, they’ve had an indifferent month but that can happen. This league is a tough league to play in. They won their first three games without conceding a goal and now all of a sudden they’re struggling defensively. I don’t buy into that, personally. They’ve got a very, very good squad of players. I’ve got an awful lot of respect for Nuno and believe he’ll do a good job.

“We’re certainly very respectful of the Tottenham team and we’ll prepare accordingly.”

Leon Bailey and Morgan Sanson (both hamstring) remain out for Villa, with Smith expected to stick with the three-man defensive system which worked so impressively through September and saw his team keep clean sheets in their last two matches.

That would see Danny Ings and Ollie Watkins continue up front. The latter, who bagged the winner when Villa triumphed 2-1 at Tottenham in May, is yet to find the net this season but was this week boosted by a recall to the England squad.

Smith explained how the knee injury which saw Watkins miss the early weeks of the campaign had led the club to modify his training regime.

He added: “His work-rate and what he does in training is enough to take Gareth’s (Southgate) notice and they were only too happy to call him back up.”