PREVIEW: Spurs vs Villa - 19/10/25

0:00This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. Hello everyone, welcome back. Welcome back to football. Good old bloody football. Bloody, ruddy football. We all love it, don't we? It gives our lives some meaning. Our insignificant, pathetic little lives. but speaking about giving life some meaning

0:31we've uh me and charlotte have had a baby there you go i'll say that one up front if you weren't aware just this uh this week yeah i had a we've had a daughter so that's good it's brilliant i'm not trying i'm not trying to sound standoffish about it actually I'm not trying to act like I'm above that. I'm very much delighted. I'm in a nice little bubble of bliss. It's just been a lot back and forwards, a lot back and forwards to like hospitals, jaundice, this type of stuff. But hopefully all routine and she seems happy and healthy and Charlotte's doing well as well for anyone that's interested.

1:17So I hope I will still be making lots of podcasts for everybody um i should be be fine women's work that in it changing nappies and all that you can't be expecting me to do that i've got to uh sit around and do some podcast love i'm sorry uh no i'm very modern man right i change nappies you know i get up in the night and do do feeds from expressed milk and stuff you know all that all that you know i say positive affirmations to the baby in my arms you know all that type of stuff i'm a i'm a modern a modern modern man aren't i fantastic but the football is back the football is back is is an interesting an interesting bit of something for you.

2:12Just on the note of what we were talking about just a second ago. Charlotte and I met just ahead of a home game to Aston Villa. And now the Ween's first game will be a home game to Aston Villa. Isn't that a nice bit of trivia? Doesn't the universe sort of, you know, sync up these things quite nicely? It's nothing to do with the fact that they pretty much organized the calendar the same every single year but it's you know there's still there's something in that in it the universe and all that universal energy lemons worked out for pochettino all right didn't it look he's about to go into a world cup with the united states of america how's that how's those lemons i'm not saying that as a slight on the mirror i actually did mean that as a as a good thing um look at me me squirming don't stop listening to me american audience please i did actually mean it as a good thing though it's quite good in it managing managing the one of the home that you know i know it's a it's a trans country well transcontinental actually isn't it transcontinental competition this year um which is actually awful for the environment i have to say if you've seen the sort of air miles and all that type of thing that the whatever i'm not going to start being pious about all that it's a good thing good for pochettino good for me a new addition to the family it's lovely isn't it lovely and what what could possibly spoil my little bubble of bliss other than Tottenham Hotspur being back got to put those ones in haven't you the football banters it's a football podcast after all I had a very lovely chat with Rob Daly and Ben Haynes the other day if you've not listened to that yet please do check it out I think I'm going to put this out on the main I haven't managed to do a Thursday pod this week you know I'm sure you can understand why that is so I might put this out on the on the main feed and if you are listening to this on the main normal feed it's this type of it's this type of like top tier content that you can get on Patreon patreon.com slash RTR pod now that I have a mouth to feed your uh your customers all the more all the more welcome there's two options obviously there's one the inner sanctum for extra pods and there's just an ad-free version.

4:47So if you're one of the people that's complaining about the adverts and stuff that are on your free podcast, you can pay, I think,£1.50 a month and get all of my podcasts that go on the main feed ad-free. So there you go. Aston Villa. Aston Villa. Not had a very good start to the season, have they? Not had the best start to the season. I've never felt that confident going into games against Aston Villa. They've always been one of those teams that we've always been sort of around them in the Premier League era, at least. We've always inhabited sort of a similar echelon of, I don't know, being all right, if you like.

5:37And then obviously they've been relegated and we've gone on to become like a sort of top four team or at least a champions league team fairly consistently something that they very much want for themselves it's what they aspire to be and they've chucked loads and loads of money haven't they at their their salary salaries i was gonna say that i was gonna say their salary bank is that a thing i don't think that's a thing I don't even know where that's come from. I am operating on about three, four hours of sleep a night at the moment, just saying, you know. Why didn't anyone tell me that? Why doesn't anyone tell you that before you have a baby?

6:20They cry in the night. They need feeding and nappies changing and stuff. You know, you don't hear much about all that type of thing, do you? All you see is Instagram stories with like, what's that song from twilight i loved you for a i could lay every day waiting for you look at me trying to pretend like i don't know it darling for a thousand years you see those kind of things and it will be a you know a nice sort of video of a baby going to a pumpkin patch or something like that it's like this is this is great this is i mean there is this it's lovely don't get me wrong i'm not trying to be too cynical about it but nobody tells you about the downsides of it you know you don't hear about that it's come as uh it has come as something of a surprise to me um villa salary bank

7:22is bad and they've had to not buy players sell players is emery a fraud has he had his kind of couple of seasons in charge and now he's not good anymore watch this space watch this space tottenham fans i think he is probably quite a good manager isn't he he's probably in a similar well i'm sort of nick and charlie eckleshares point here we sort of decided frank and emery are probably in a similar they're sort of similar bedfellows you know they're managers who clearly have a lot of quality who are clearly you know what do we call it like students of the game is that what it is when you call a manager a student in the game is that just basically calling them a nerd is that what it means a professor that's what they always used to call Arsene Wenger back in the day, the professor I mean he wasn't a professor he was just a sort of quite a softly spoken French bloke the professor that's what makes a professor in the UK if you weren't aware just not shouting gimmicky sort of stuff being reserved and being somewhat academic, at least outwardly academic presenting.

8:46Should we say that? I think that's a way of saying what Aston Villa is. Aston Villa, yeah, they're a funny one. The point I was trying to sort of drive at was I'm never too confident around Aston Villa. I never go into those games and think, or smash them even when we've been way better than them even when we have smashed them up at Villa Park all over the place there's still something I've still got a memory of I want to say there was a game at Villa Park where it was going to be like one of the first times we beat them in absolutely yonks and then I think they got a penalty right towards the end of Juan Pablo Ancel who is one of those the streets don't forget type players he was a he was an absolute baller brilliant player he was he was a pure like a pure Tottenham player as well really but a lovely lovely strike and I seem to recall him equalising and me thinking we never beat Aston Villa we never beat them at all and I always remember clinging on to as you do when you're sort of a kid Lee Hendry who was like he was almost like Gareth Barry before Gareth Barry in a way like a sort of a fairly solid decent midfielder do you know what I mean I mean that probably actually undersells Gareth Barry who is a highly decorated player he's actually a brilliant player but Lee Hendry was almost like a proto Gareth Barry but I always remember hearing you know Lee Hendry's a Spurs fan he's a Spurs fan sort of just as a kid wanting to have a player who was a Spurs fan playing for Spurs there was something that seemed quite nice about that I don't even know if it's true or not but that's what I always had and he was one of their better players for quite some time I think I don't really know if he was like a sort of a legend I don't know if you go that far by any stretch of the imagination but he was definitely one of their better players and so I always kind of I think about Olaf Melberg, what a player he was I always sort of go into Villa games a bit wary I never sort of think this is a game that we're going to show up and sort of smash them about in.

11:05And they have obviously improved a lot over the past few years under Emery, who is a shrewd manager. It didn't work out for him at Arsenal, but they were sort of in their, still in their banter era basket case sort of tangent, weren't they? And I don't think that was all attributable to him.

11:28they're decent they're all right i'm just not that i'm not that confident about it let's let's put it that way i'm i'd love to be coming back from this international break like bounding into this with limitless enthusiasm but i mean they've got they're not that far they've got nine points this season they're 13th in the table so last game they beat Burnley they've beaten Feyenoord I mean they've been in decent form actually to be fair they're sort of they're kicking into form now so in the Premier League at least they've beaten Burnley Fulham and they drew away at Sunderland who are having a good start to season funny what spending a load of money would do but they've also beaten Bologna in the Europa League and they've beaten Feyenoord away so we can take from it that they're sort of coming into form i know they haven't really signed anybody this summer nobody's significant but they're still a decent enough team aren't they um thomas frank has obviously had his press conference this afternoon and he was asked about the sort of the return of fabio peratici i i'll i'll be honest with you i haven't watched the whatever it is i think the club put out like a an interview i'm I'm pretty sure Ben was interviewing the two of them, talking about how their roles are going to go.

12:49Vinay Venkateshin has spoken about it. It seems to be like what we'd all expected, right? That Lange profiles players, profiles the squad, looks at what we need, assesses what we need, does scouting himself, uses scouts that he knows and trusts who can find players of a certain profile. And then Fabio Peratici is said to be the closer, isn't he? he's the guy that will go out and get these deals done now that now that Daniel Levy isn't there um there has been some talk I've seen some I mean again this could all be very like trust me bro ITK stuff but I've seen some people talking on Twitter saying that one of the feelings amongst the club is that with with Levy gone despite the fact that he could be quite frustrating he was somebody that was very very experienced in high level club to club negotiations and basically the way it all went and as soon as he left we didn't really have anybody that was should we say a dab hand at all that type of thing um other than fabio piratici who will now be heading a lot of that stuff up and i think you know it's obviously important isn't it you know when you go for any job at any level it doesn't need to be like a a top level kind of executive at a football club or something like that in your day-to-day life you will have a job and a job spec and you will have a load of responsibilities and it will outline what is expected of you but as we know in the real world more often than not you slip into a natural rhythm of things and if you're in a kind of job that values you and sees what you are capable of doing you often quite organically fall into doing a certain role you fulfill a certain purpose don't you within a company as well as do obviously do ticking off many of the things that are in your job spec there's always going to be a base baseline isn't there but you will invariably end up doing various other bits and pieces and you sort of feel like with with Perattici that's that's going to be the case isn't it yeah sure he he will probably be on the hand to talk to i don't know whoever the head of an academy or the head of recruitment or you know chief football operating executives and stuff from various clubs when we try and sign 20 30 minutes vuscoviches and bergvales those sort of players but i would still imagine you know a leopard doesn't change its spots for example that But Parasicci will be there sniffing out the deals for us.

15:30He'll be there finding more of the Kulisevsky and Bentenka type deals. A club like Atletico Madrid or one of the Italian clubs, an AC or somebody like that, needs to get some players off their book. They need to trim some fat. There could be a deal to be done. do we have a little pot of 30 40 mil do you want this player oh go on then you know that that that i think that's the type of that's the type of thing he does as well right you know we've sort of spoken about like the ref of and of art deal back in the day right he's going to be that player that you can imagine i mean people are already talking about like um kenan kenan neal does that he's obviously like you know one of those sort of star boys at juventus a lot of people are going for him but you know you could equally imagine a dusan vlajevic who hasn't had the best time of it the past few years but you could still imagine a vlajevic somebody like that wants a change of scenery can spurs get him in yeah go on then peratici can can kind of have a chat with people he knows at juventus or whatever you know it's like the uh i have been enjoying the uh the secret ingredient is crime super handsome peep show meme that people have been using about like piratichi and his his way of operating but he is a bit of a wheeler dealer isn't he we know that about him and i'm not you know i'm not i'm not i'll be honest i'm not sat here kind of hailing this as the messiah has returned or hell the conquering hero type thing i'm fairly ambivalent on fabio peratici and i'm fairly ambivalent on joan langer i don't i don't have that visceral hatred and a lot of people hate langer like they really i think they sort of lump him in with the the ineptitude of tottenham's transfer dealings over the past few years and i think a lot of him is I think he's been poisoned by Levy's aura, shall we say, around the place for quite some time.

17:43And he's sort of lumped in with that, with Daniel Levy, with failure, with struggling to get deals across the line, with Spurs not going after top-level talent. Oh, it's all well and good that we're signing Archie Gray and Bergvaule, but I want players to know. And I agree with that. I'm not turning my nose up at anybody who feels that, but it feels like Langer has become kind of the spokesman for that side of Spurs and as such people don't really like him but I don't dislike him I'm pretty ambivalent about him I'm pretty ambivalent about Fabio Peretici I just I mean the time for talking is over he says on a podcast again where he's talking to himself but the time for talking and all this sort of stuff is over and I'm saying that now I just want to see Spurs in action I want to see next transfer window Spurs just acting like a proper club getting deals done and I know it's January and I know it's tough but other clubs managed to do it where there's a will there's a way and if Peretici and Langer can do that if they can work coherently with one another they can work and not get toxic and everybody's happy then great because that's great for Spurs and that's what we all want isn't it we want Spurs to be good we want to be signing good players we want to be competing for good players we want to be up at the very top of the table competing for honours doing the best that we possibly can do and I just that's that's what that's what I want from now like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna I'm not gonna champion this I'm not gonna get too excited about Paretichi's return but I'm not going to like look into it too much either I'm here to now fresh slate see what people can do let's see what people can do when they're backed by a club that wants to achieve things that wants to be successful on the pitch because that seems to be very much the stated aims of the Lewis family as we're to call them now

19:59so let's just hope let's wait and see Thomas Frank has had his press conference day and this is where I was at he was asked about Fabio Perattici it just kind of reminded me that I hadn't actually spoken about that fairly significant piece of news at Tottenham he said I'm positive about it Fabio worked as a consultant for the club so I've met him there a few times the last couple of months I'm looking forward to getting to know him more of course when it's more day to day you'll know each other even better blah blah blah blah I've no doubt that Fabio, Johan and I, Vinay as well, will create a very strong team.

20:38Convinced we can create something very good. I'm used to working with sporting directors. I've done that for nine years at Brentford.

20:47Blah, blah, blah, blah. He says that he thinks their styles will complement one another. So, good. he was asked if he had any input into the into this do you speak to vin i um and say you had two days before it worked did you speak to vin i and say you had two days before and it worked you had two before and it worked really well okay i see what he's saying two sporting directors he said yeah um there were thoughts about it of course it happened to me the first time i spoke about it uh he said he was very positive about it um it worked very well no one's perfect in this world but they both have strong abilities um they complement each other it's a perfect match they'll cover more together so you know let's i mean we can only hope it works out that way i don't i can't you know people tread on each other's toes don't they in a sort of anecdotal sense but i can't really see them falling out massively because i can't see them really occupying the same space for the reasons that were you know i've just sort of waffled on about for the past however long um vinay does say that he expects disagreements because everyone's different um and then they've said to frank will he have the final say if it's a player coming in in january or something frank has said i will always have the final say um in the end it's teamwork i'm pretty sure if one of them um hang on i'm pretty sure if one of them i would say three of us because vinay is as he's saying not technical or whatever you call it of course he will have an opinion but the three of us need to agree um he's just sort of saying because basically i'm taking this from football like football london like that i guess somebody's typing it out typing out the minutes as frank is saying it and they're typing it out verbatim and obviously English is not Thomas Frank's first language so they're they're sort of typing out exactly as he said it but he's he's essentially making the point that they are uh he's just emphasizing the fact they're a strong team they're a team they're a team they're all going to make a decision he will have the final say but it doesn't mean that he's going to sort of rule the roost over it um people will make the case to him and they'll all examine different players and different options that are being put up.

23:20He was asked seven games coming up in the next 20, seven games in the next 22 game. Tottenham, that's a lot of podcasts, isn't it? So yeah, Monaco Wednesday, Everton Sunday, Newcastle Wednesday, oh yeah, EFL Cup, Chelsea 1st of November. Smelly, smelly Chelsea. I mean, Jesus, that is a lot of games, to be fair. That is a lot of football. Add to Copenhagen as well. PSG, nice.

23:55He said, yeah, definitely we love to play games. Every footballer loves to play a game instead of training. Coaches, we like to train a little bit more sometimes, but in general, we love to play games. Fantastic run ahead of us, starting with Villa on Sunday. Top team, top manager. Unai, I respect a lot. What he's done in his career is amazing. What he has created at Villa is fantastic in so many areas. They did well in the Champions League last season and almost qualified again, which is very impressive. They've got a very strong team, so looking forward to it. I mean, that is a point. Like, you know, they are a decent side.

24:32He was asked, considering what you've done so far with the injuries that you've got, does it whet your appetite for what could be achieved when you've got all your players back he said i think we all have an idea in our head what could be the strongest team with all the players available but probably the reality is that you need to create the strongest possible team of the players you have available now that's my task that's my job and to get the best out of that it's nice to dream a bit but like with all dreams it's not reality reality is here now what kind of players we have available and then i need to perform for them that said i would like some of them to be fit i mean it's all very it's all very diplomatic isn't it he's he's there he's trying not to like mug off the players it has available to him because it's a trap isn't it when you say you're doing quite well but when you get rid of some of these shit houses and get the proper team in you're gonna be doing even better aren't you and he sort of is acting quite well there to be like look you know i i have lots of strong 11s and we'll be good we'll be we'll be fine so um he was asked a bit more about like how if he's been surprised by how villa have done um

25:52like this season in terms of like because they're down in 13th he said it like they're very good in the build-up they've got a fantastic structure they're very composed a fantastic player players ollie watkins daniel marlin score goals anana in midfield kamara telemans is injured but they're a top team back four is very good so it's a team you can see that's growing and i expect an unbelievably tight game on sunday but we're very positive that we'll do everything to edge it and i believe that we can but it's a strong test oh this is interesting um they've asked him about the xg thing so they've said on the bbc website we have an interesting article about xg how much influence does it have on you as a manager with data and how much do you use xg with squads on a match day he says not much on on match days um he does use data i've done that for a long time um i want to create the right narrative that to get across to the players um or of course to the media to make sure we're getting the right message out there um but he says it's also good to have an indicator or benchmark that you can look towards when analyzing a performance um but good lad proper football man but he says but it's my eyes my knowledge and principle principles um of what i believe in that's the most important thing um he says it's always good to have the stats to back things up um but obviously i test ultimately is the is the thing he would go with and i you know i i still tend to to i know i sort of have a joke i know i have a joke i had a joke with ben and rob about like windy and xg and stuff I'm not actually somebody that's completely against data I don't I don't dislike it I don't see it as an affront to the game do I think people allow it to dictate the narrative a bit too much yeah I do I do you know and I think people draw assumptions from a lot I'm not I'm not saying this is everyone I know there are people who present data in a in a you know in a very narrative driven fashion um ironically enough i think like you know nathan on on the extra inch does that quite a lot um i know he is known for data and obviously you know he's not free from his own biases as none of us are at all when it comes to like the sort of the narratives he wants to create but i do think he often tries to tell the bigger picture around data whereas sometimes you'll see tweets where people just want to compete about stuff like one of the ones has been about like florian verts and um xavi at the moment like how we're

28:45people are choosing the data that makes xavi look way better right than than than the liverpool player he probably has had a better start to his career but the data that's always plucked out is is trying to affirm a narrative isn't it as thomas frank says you know he uses data himself to try and back up a story that he's trying to tell we all know the way in which it can be used and we know the way in which it could be misappropriated i still think eye test is one of those i mean like the the thing about eye test is it like i will sometimes have those games where i've watched the game and i thought i think poro has been useless today and he's really annoying me because it doesn't look like he's getting anything done blah blah blah and then i will look at the data afterwards and i'll say well actually in context to the rest of the game he's actually been okay so I've probably gone into this game in a bit of a hump with a bit of a hump or I've just sort of looked at certain moments more I've been paying attention more when he's messed up or something thus my confirmation bias will say I'm choosing Pedro Pora just as an example straight off the top of my head because he was somebody I guess I dug out quite a bit last year whereas data will often show that he is often one of Tottenham's better players and i do think even by eye test now he is one of topland's better players but example i'm trying to make is that like sometimes you can hone in on certain things and that allows the narrative to be dictated in your head that a certain player is having a bad game or hasn't had a good run of games and data sometimes can allow you to sit back and reflect on that i feel anyway I still am somewhat averse to people saying this player is no good because his data in this particular region is not very good when I'm watching them and I can see a net positive effect not positive impact that they're having upon the team I think Giappolini is a perfect example of that there's plenty of data that can be used to suggest that he is just some like pack horse like midfielder that doesn't bring a lot that his passing is this and that and here's a passing map but i test to me continues to show that xiaopelini is important to the team and i also feel that like the kind of the forward passing thing when he's in the team it means that we can't get the ball forwards i think that's massively overstated because i don't see a huge uptick in like ball progression when he's not in the team but what I do see is a higher instance of people creating and getting at Spurs and attacking us um I think there was something said this week wasn't there about the fact that he's uh that Spurs are going to try and get the deal done I think it's Florian Pettenberg wasn't it that was saying that Bayern and Tottenham expect that deal to be done pretty ASAP so you know there we go um uh they're sort of they also go on to say somebody said that Vicario's speaking with XG Vicario's done very well um overperforming in front of goal do the stats match up what you're seeing he said there's a yes and a no uh in some areas I've been very happy with it so it's not only xg both things um because that's very simple to look at um i always want to it to be top than the other end but i think seven games is a very small sample in general there's so this i think there's there's i've seen this data going around as well people have been sharing this that we are the highest over performer of xg in the premier league uh i think it's us then burnley then Bournemouth I want to say but the sample size is tiny and I think as we all know Frank at the moment is trying to bring some more defensive solidity to the squad isn't he to the team and that's that's where we're at that's what we're doing I think we are going to start to create more chances we are going to start to look better going forwards once we've got more of our world-class attacking players back I don't I don't think it's much more deep than that but like frank has basically said um he thinks we're improving in the final third um the number of crosses arriving in the box were in the top that's key for me because if we put a lot of crosses in hopefully with more quality we'll have more players arriving there in the right gaps in the right areas great opportunity for for scoring goals um so that's what i'm looking into uh they asked if we'll see Dom Solanke in this 22 day period before the November international break and he said the good thing is that he's progressing he's training on his own so I don't want to be too excited or too negative either way I'm taking it little by little day by day week by week to see how he progresses he's a naturally fit player there's some players that naturally get that fitness up to a high level but of course we only we also need to take into consideration that he hasn't trained with the team since July it's not to say that it will take three months to get up to pace but it will take some time how long I don't know they've also asked how excited they are to get Kala Moani out on the pitch now that he's fit he says obviously it's very important to have him fit and available he's getting better and better he's trained two weeks with the team and he came in on the 1st of September that's six seven weeks ago time flies but he needed more time to get up to the higher level it's not to say that he can't be involved tomorrow maybe he can play some minutes but he needs more time to get up he needs a little bit of time he says uh to be fully firing which is fair enough isn't it uh they say do you relish a tough run of fixtures to try and improve the poor home record he said yeah i think uh in general well, every team I can speak for Tottenham Hotspur would like their home to be a fortress.

34:46That's the ultimate aim. Can we make our home an unbelievably difficult place to come to? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We need to bring great energy.

34:58He's saying he needs the fans to be there, to back the club, but it's not just all about them. So he's not throwing the fans under the bus. He's saying it needs to be the team. It can't just be the fans. everybody needs to bring their energy it's absolutely key um do everything that we can to work unbelievably hard to perform well be positive um but we do need that help from the fans so he says yeah we need that when our fans are behind the team and the stadium is rocking it's one of the best places in the world and it's true like i know we're biased like we are biased but it's also one of those things that is true like when i say that you know my daughter is incredible she's one of the smartest babies that's ever existed one of the cutest most beautiful i am biased as a as a cooing new father but it's also true like and it's you know that's that's not an opinion um same as as white heart lane isn't it when that stadium is rocking gary neville who is loath to give spurs anything loath to give spurs anything at the best of times he's spoken about how that stadium is like brutalizing arsenal all that type of thing we know it we know how good this fan base is we know how good they are um but it does it does take the team performing as well it does you know it's it's it's a bit of isn't it

36:29who are they talking about uh so great international break from mathis teller wilson not a bear two hugely talented young players keen to get them to fulfill potential uh he said yeah it was nice seeing both perform well for their country watch the goals and assists um and all the action from their game it's nice um sometimes you're in a moment you're in good rhythm clearly both of them are in a good rhythm scoring goals performing well having good actions that's key um it's pleased with both players in general i think they're developing taking steps in the right direction so that's positive kish um of lily white lab talks about odaba he talks about tell as well but he talks about odaba a lot um and how much he has you know liked him for a long time i i'm a fan of odaba i i've i'm i'm i'm in sort of net positive i'm not quite and i'm not gonna pretend to be i'm not as effusive in my praise of him as kish but kish studies football on a different level to to the way i do i am encouraged though when i see sorts of people who are more students of the game back to the top who are excited about a young player because i do think odder bear looks really good i do think there's a lot of promise there you know i'm not i'm not jumping on that sort of i'm not gonna say bandwagon but i'm not a part of the the fans that sort of think that he's a waste of space that he was a waste of money i i think there's a promising young player there and the way him and tell do link up internationally is great i think i think it was actually windy as well talking about it on the extra inch saying that you know france have such an incredible array of talent amongst every level and the fact that tell and odaba are pretty much guaranteed starters for their under 21s is something that people should take a lot of heart from and should be excited about um i like both of them i think they're both i think they're both class players so you know i'm i'm willing to how big are me but i'm willing to give like you know these sort of players in their early 20s a bit of time to just get settled let's put it this way i i wouldn't be surprised I wouldn't be surprised if both Odeber and Tell are two of our sort of big big players in the next few years and we're all kind of like god remember when we all wanted to sell them equally I wouldn't be surprised if both of them weren't at Spurs and were loaned out to wherever La Liga or something like that you know I sort of see them they could go either way I think they're going to be big important players to Tottenham though personally speaking um they've asked him about kind of the you know Rando Cullinwani in the World Cup and all that sort of stuff and you know whatever it's just much of the same isn't it um seeing if it's going to be long before we see the player that Spurs signed and you know he's again he's sort of just skirting around the fact that he's not being ready and he's he's got to you know get everything back up to fitness so there's not a lot there um but we are you know Aston Villa is never as I said at the top it's never a game that I'm that excited about previous meetings in all competitions we've played Aston Villa 157 times in our history we've won 70 of those games we've lost 55 so that's good you know we've we've kind of got the the balance on them it's fairly close-ish but more often than not we're beating them so that's good i didn't realize our form against them isn't particularly great um in the past few so 16th may we lost yet villa park obviously 2-0 they beat us in the fa cup in february but we did beat them 4-1 in november before that some match facts going into this one none of the last 20 Premier League matches between Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa have been drawn.

40:3314 Spurs win, 6 Villa wins. The last was a 1-1 stalemate in May 2012. Only two fixtures in the competition's history have ever had more successive games without a draw, which is Newcastle versus Spurs and Chelsea versus Crystal Palace. So there you go. Aston Villa have won four of their last six Premier League games against Tottenham Hotspur. they've only lost two of those that's as many as their previous 29 quite mad spurs have won just three of their last 17 premier league home games drawn four lost 10 uh since the first game of this run november 10th 2024 against ipswich no ever present side has lost more home games 10 or picked up fewer home points 13 in the competition than spurs i mean that is disgusting that is disgusting um and just been talking about that type of thing today i'm not i'm not going to go into it i know people get very sensitive about anthropos to cog glue but i would say he didn't represent the truth very accurately i'm not gonna lie um but that's behind us now thomas frank all that sort of thing so let's just hope he can start to improve us but i've not you know i've not I don't think it's all on Ange and I don't think it's going to be all on Frank we haven't really and this is this is something that a lot of people say we haven't really made the new stadium home yet have we and I think it doesn't go much further than we just haven't been very good the entire time we've been there first season obviously we had the Champions League run and then it's successively all kind of fallen to pieces since then but you know if that trophy parade there's anything to go by it shows you that when things are going well the appetite's there spurs can rally one of the best sort of you know supports in the country and just make the tickets a bit cheaper as well do you know i mean because that is a thing that is a factor and i don't like i know i know there's this sort of like inverse snobbery this classist thing of like you know well when you make the tickets all expensive it just gets full of like prawn sandwich brigade and they never make any noise but that's one of them things isn't it where it's like that's not untrue is it like let's be honest i'm not saying there aren't people who have money who are middle class or whatever that can't get in and make noise in a stadium i'm not saying that that's true but when you do kind of gentrify a football ground right you know it's going to be a bit quieter you know there's going to be a certain expectation there from a lot of people as well and i don't think that's a class thing i think that is free from class i think anybody that has paid what's the average ticket price at tottenham now 75 pounds should we say average 70 pounds to go and watch something you want to be entertained because that's what our entire society is now isn't it entertainment at the touch of a button oh oh isn't he deep oh isn't going all adam curtis turn it in mate you know i'm saying no it's true isn't it spooky spoken about this sort of thing before you know you pay for a ticket at the west end you read the reviews of a show you know you're in for a good time right there's no guarantee of football that you're in for a good time but i guess the thing is always that you know the the highs the highs are generally always going to outweigh any of the lows when we go to one of those games where you score a last minute winner or something like that that outweighs the feeling of any other type of entertainment it is genuinely like a drug it hits like a drug it's unbelievable um

44:22but still mate tickets a bit cheaper

44:28after failing to win each of their opening five league games this season Villa have won their last two. Indeed, since the beginning of March, only Manchester City have enjoyed more Premier League wins, 11, than Unai Emery side, 10. I don't really get it. I can't really bother to go over that stat. I don't really make sense of it. Tottenham have scored 13 goals from an expected goal tally of 7.5 in the Premier League. That's what we're talking about. Biggest overperformance of any side. Their shot conversion rate of 16.9 % is second only to Manchester City, 17.4. And obviously their stats are skewed by Erling Haaland as well, aren't they?

45:0925 % of Villa's shots in the Premier League this season have been from corner situations, 19 of 76. Only West Ham have a higher ratio. Indeed, only Arsenal and Chelsea have registered more efforts from corners overall than Unai Emery's side. Thomas Frank has never beaten Unai Emery, Aston Villa side in the Premier League in five attempts. Drawn two, lost three, all with Brentford. It's the most he's faced an opposing manager in a competition without ever winning. There's one about Kudus being great, so we know Kudus is amazing. And Aston Villa's more going, oh, go on, I'll give it to you. Mamie Kudus has completed 30 dribbles in the Premier League this season with no other player completing 20 or more.

45:57Indeed, he has, they like saying this, indeed, on this BBC stats thing. He has completed 246 dribbles in his 72 Premier League appearances overall. The only player to record 250 plus successful dribbles within his first 73 games on Optus records is Alan St. Maxman. So yeah, he was good. 250 in his first 58. Aston Villa's Morgan Rodgers. Good, it's his class, isn't he? Aston Villa's Morgan Rodgers has assisted more goals in the Premier League in 2025 than any other player. That's quite mad. Rodgers has assisted in his last two league games, but has never recorded one in three successive Premier League appearances before.

46:42Dr. Tottenham, hold my beer. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. How funny. I did a joke about Tottenham that everybody always does about Tottenham. I am smart. Maybe I will open a football banter aggregator account. Oh, wait, Ted Trunk. you already have one of those don't think that just because you come on a podcast and talk to yourself and drop the odd cultural reference that is really you know uh should we say deliberately telling of oh i am a highbrow i am that anybody thinks you are anything other than a gobshy oik

47:25if you can carve that onto my headstone one day and i hope it's quite a way away that would be appreciated um some people don't like these ones i'm saying that at the end here some people don't like you know some of the newer listeners you have to get used to this right this is this is uh when i'm not there bouncing off of people or getting triggered by people in youtube comments and stuff like that.

47:55This goes to some, let's put the chips on my head, weird and wacky places. He's so crazy, I love him. What won't he say? But I know a lot of you like these, so I'm glad you do.

48:12I just, you know, I've got to get some more swill out into the content trough, don't I? That's what it's all about. and I also just wanted to let everyone know you know the baby's here I'm not going to say her name I sort of well I don't really care about it but in terms I'm not bothered about somebody saying something but it's also like it's a privacy thing in it like there's a lot of don't put their faces up online because they haven't consented to it and stuff and I know some people scoff at that and be like oh god that's woke and stuff I do think it's actually fair enough you know I think a lot of the people would say that's woke to think that way would be kicking off about like other sort of freedoms and stuff being dissolved, or perceived freedoms, if you like, without getting into any sort of big, heavy contentious debates on anything.

49:02So I think it's kind of fair enough to say, well, maybe I shouldn't put somebody's face and name all over the Internet if they don't have the agency to consent to that yet. so in senate you know there's been a few pictures go out on my finster and stuff so i'm just i'm just i'm a data pirate that's what i am i'm sorry child i have already you know put your data all over the internet um i'm going on about i will do i will be doing a pod after the game there's gonna be lots of family and all that sort of stuff coming around over the past over the next few weeks obviously. But I'm hoping to, I'm hoping to keep the podcast or publishing schedule pretty regular, keeping it, you know, I want to, you know, I do want to stay on top of this.

49:51The pod has grown again over the years and everything like that. It's something that, you know, I've, I put a lot of care and attention into and Charlotte knows that and it's part of my income as well. Like there's no hiding from that. So, you know, before you start giving me your wisecracks about like, why don't you look after your baby, mate, instead of doing podcasts, if I say something about a player that you like, and if I say something that's less than effusive about that player, before you start using my podcast as a stick to beat me with about my ability as a parent all right just know that i am a humble and wonderful father so and that's it's not even been a week yet so um podcasts podcasts misses kids in no particular order spurs as well on their films as well um i started watching that ed gein thing on netflix just like you know when i was trying to stay awake and bits of feeds and stuff and i after like an episode and a half i was like i'm gonna put this away for now like i don't this this this uh this energy should not be like infesting the nesting newborn stage of life right now.

51:19This is a little like drop of misery. I mean, it's horrible. I know a lot of people will sort of talk about whether or not that sort of stuff should be turned into entertainment, but you know, I'll talk about that on another pod. Anyway, I will be doing a pod after the Villa game. I hope you've enjoyed some of this rambling today. Anyway, at least come on you Spurs. Come on, baby. come on parenting up the spurs up all of it much love thank you for listening ratings reviews all that type of stuff is always appreciated sharing the podcast again always appreciated patreon.com slash rtr pod get on there support the show thank you very much much love bye