We look ahead to Sunday’s FA Cup fourth-round clash at Villa Park with our Aston Villa vs Tottenham prediction and preview. Two teams looking to end trophy droughts do battle in an all-Premier League contest.
Aston Villa vs Tottenham Stats: The Key Insights
- The Opta supercomputer favours Aston Villa to progress inside 90 minutes on Sunday, giving them a 47.7% chance of doing so.
- Villa are looking to reach the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time since 2014-15, when they eventually reached the final before losing 4-0 to Arsenal.
- Tottenham have progressed from four of their last five FA Cup fourth-round ties, though they did lose 1-0 against Manchester City at this stage of the competition last season.
Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham will look to keep their hopes of domestic cup glory this season alive when they travel to Villa Park on Sunday to take on Aston Villa.
It’s been a difficult second campaign in north London for Postecoglou, whose team currently sit a lowly 15th in the Premier League and crashed out of the EFL Cup on Thursday after they saw a one-goal advantage from their semi-final first leg eradicated by Liverpool, ultimately losing 4-1 on aggregate.
Even getting to this stage of the FA Cup was a struggle, with Tottenham taken to extra-time by National League part-timers Tamworth in the third round before finally kicking on to secure their progression with an eventual 3-0 triumph.
The scoreline certainly didn’t befit the performance, but as with any cup competition, getting the result is what mattered, particularly for Postecoglou who famously said earlier this season his teams “always win things” in his second campaign in charge at a club.
Even with his side’s shocking Premier League season so far, an FA Cup trophy would etch Postecoglou’s name into Spurs folklore, ending a lean period for the club’s fans who last witnessed their team lift a trophy in 2008, beating Chelsea to win the League Cup.
It would also move Tottenham into third for all-time FA Cup trophies with nine, behind rivals Arsenal (14) and Manchester United (13).
They’ll first have to get past Villa, though, who will have their own designs on FA Cup success this season.
Unai Emery has done a superb job since taking over at Villa Park in October 2022, guiding the Villans to Champions League qualification and subsequent progression to the knockout round of this season’s competition.
Whether they go on to win that competition remains to be seen, but for now the focus is the FA Cup, a trophy Villa last lifted in 1957, a remarkable drought for a club of their size.
Winning the FA Cup this season would move them up to joint-third all-time for most successes in the competition, joining Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool as eight-time winners.
They’ll have to keep a close eye on Son Heung-min this Sunday, however.
In the Premier League era (since 1992-93), Son has been involved in more FA Cup goals than any other Tottenham player (26 – 14 goals, 12 assists). In that time, only Harry Kane and Jermain Defoe (15 each) have scored more in the competition for Tottenham than their current captain.
In terms of team news, Emery will remain without the likes of Pau Torres, Matty Cash and Tyrone Mings, while Ollie Watkins is also a doubt. However, Marcus Rashford could be in line to make his debut after joining on loan from Manchester United.
Tottenham’s injury problems persist, and they received another blow in the defeat at Liverpool as Richarlison limped off, joining a packed physio room that already includes key players such as Dominic Solanke, Cristian Romero, Micky Van de Ven and Radu Dragusin.
Aston Villa vs Tottenham Head-to-Head
Villa have progressed from just one of their last six FA Cup ties against Tottenham, winning 1-0 at White Hart Lane in a third-round replay after a goalless draw at Villa Park in 1992.
Tottenham, meanwhile, have won nine of their last 10 away games against Villa in all competitions (one defeat), with their last two wins coming by the same 4-0 scoreline (April 2022 and March 2024).
The last meeting between the sides was back in November, when a Solanke double and goals from Brennan Johnson and James Maddison helped Tottenham cruise to a 4-1 Premier League home victory.
Aston Villa vs Tottenham Prediction
Villa are backed by the Opta supercomputer to get the job done within 90 minutes on Sunday, doing so in 47.7% of pre-match simulations.
Tottenham and Postecoglou badly need to progress, and they won inside 90 minutes in 26.2% of the sims.
FA Cup replays are now a thing of the past, and the game went to extra-time following a draw after 90 minutes in 26.1% of the supercomputer’s simulations.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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