Premier League title contenders Tottenham kick off their season with a tricky home match, they host newly-promoted Aston Villa at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Saturday. The two teams have last met in the FA Cup in 2017 and that match was won 2-0 by the Spurs. That was the third consecutive win for Tottenham over Aston Villa in all competitions, but the last win for the Villans against the Spurs was in London in 2015.
Tottenham had a pretty tense summer, with manager Mauricio Pochettino complaning quite openly about the lack of activity on the transfer market. However, the Spurs did break their transfer record to sign central midfielder Tanguy Ndombele from Lyon and they haven't lost any of their star players. They do start the season with a very long list of injured players, though, with Juan Foyth, Ben Davies, Dele Alli and Cameron Carter-Vickers all sidelined. Son Heung-Min is suspended for this game, while Eric Dier, Serge Aurier and Victor Wanyama are all injury doubts.
Aston Villa had a very intense summer, they got promoted to the Premier League following their 2-1 victory over Derby County in the Championship play-off final and after that they just started to sign players and never seemed to stop. The Villans have brought in no less than 12 new players, including 21-year-old midfielder Douglas Luiz from Manchester City. Moreover, they managed to win all their five friendly matches during the pre-season. Anwar El Ghazi, Jed Steer and Ezri Konsa Ngoyo are injury doubts for the visitors.
Probable line-ups:
Tottenham: Lloris - Walker-Peters, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose - Sissoko, Winks, Ndombele - Lamela - Kane, Moura
Aston Villa: Heaton - Guilbert, Engels, Mings, Targett - Jota, McGinn, Hourihane, Grealish, El Ghazi - Wesley
My prediction:
This won't be an easy match for the Spurs, but Aston Villa might need more time to settle in all their new signings, so I predict a 3-1 victory for Tottenham.
Here are the odds for this match at NetBet:
Tottenham win - 1.30
Draw - 5.55
Aston Villa win - 10.75
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