Aston Villa 1 Tottenham 2
Aston Villa Weimann 16'
Tottenham Chadli 84', Kane 90'
Red card Christian Benteke (Villa)
Man of the match Harry Kane (Tottenham)
BIRMINGHAM, England // The man of the match, Harry Kane, hailed one of the “greatest moments” in his fledgling Tottenham career after helping his side snatch a 2-1 comeback victory on Sunday over 10-man Aston Villa at Villa Park.
Villa’s five-game wait for a goal ended when Andreas Weimann opened the scoring, following a spell of dominance from the hosts as he collected Charles N’Zogbia’s cross to slot home from close range.
Tempers flared for the second time in little over five minutes after the hour mark and Christian Benteke was shown a straight red card by referee Neil Swarbrick after a tussle with Erik Lamela, in which the Belgium international raised his hand to his opponent’s face.
Things started to go downhill for the hosts after that and Spurs found their equaliser with five minutes left when an unmarked Nacer Chadli fired home Lamela’s corner, before Kane’s deflected last-gasp free-kick claimed all three points for the away side.
“Without a doubt, it was one of the greatest moments for me in a Spurs shirt in my career so far,” said Kane, who came off the bench. “To be 1-0 down in an important game for us, we needed a win, and to pull it back there at the end is a moment I won’t forget.”
The striker, 21, was sent on by Mauricio Pochettino with just over 30 minutes left.
“The manager said there’s plenty of time left, to be getting on the ball, you’ll get some chances,” Kane said. “So take one and obviously, fortunately, I was able to do that and it’s all smiles in the dressing room now.”
As for taking the 89th-minute free-kick, Kane said: “He [Lamela] wanted it and he’d taken the one before, but I said ‘This one can be mine’, and obviously it ended up in the back of the net and it was great – a great result.”
Villa manager Paul Lambert was disappointed with Benteke’s red card, which marked a turnaround for Tottenham.
“There’s things on the pitch which were a bit nasty, I thought,” Lambert said. “I’m not condoning what Christian done. You can’t raise your hands and get away with it.
“But if you look a few frames before that, you see that the lad’s actually bumped him – but Christian can’t react to that, but he’s provoked him as well.
“[Before the red card] I thought we were really comfortable and well in the ascendency of the game. I thought Benteke was excellent and he and N’Zogbia were playing ever so well together.
“It changed the game in the sense it gave Tottenham the ascendency to play against 10 men.”
Pochettino’s team had won just once in their last seven Premier League games before Sunday, but the three points propelled Tottenham into eighth in the table.
Lambert’s Villa side had not scored in their last five games – all defeats – since Gabriel Agbonlahor’s winner in their 1-0 victory at Liverpool in September.
Although they broke the deadlock against Spurs, the defeat marks their sixth loss in succession and leaves them two points above the relegation zone.
“I thought we were excellent, we could have won the game,” Lambert said.
Follow our sports coverage on twitter at @SprtNationalUAE