Tottenham stop the rot as they sneak past Aston Villa

Tottenham Hotspur 2 Aston Villa 1

For Tottenham the rot has stopped and that for now is perhaps the most important thing. After three successive league defeats, culminating in the embarrassment at Arsenal last week, any win is a good win. But, the result aside, this was an uneven performance in a game that lacked consistent quality, particularly before half-time, with the occasional poverty of the football highlighted by the grandeur of the stage.

There were flickerings of promise. Oliver Skipp continues to grow into a role at the back of midfield. Harry Kane, dropping deep far less than he has recently, nearly caught Emi Martínez out with an opportunistic free-kick. Son Heung-min looks as lively as ever. But still it's hard to avoid the feeling that this is a team nowhere near as good as the stadium in which it plays. There remains an element of Florence Foster Jenkins at Carnegie Hall about this Spurs.

It had been more than a month since Spurs had taken the lead in a league game when Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, having won the ball on halfway, continued his run and took a pass from Son unmarked on the edge of the box. The Denmark international’s slightly more advanced role this season means he occasionally finds himself in positions in which he is not entirely comfortable, but on this occasion he rolled the ball calmly into the bottom corner.

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It was a goal that had, just about, been coming. After a largely scrappy start, in which Villa had probably looked the brighter, Kane had drawn an awkward save from Martínez with an smart free-kick and Son had bent one wide. But there was little fluency, little sense of an attacking plan beyond Lucas Moura dropping deep and driving forward.

Nobody doubts that circumstances have been difficult for Nuno Espírito Santo. It’s no secret he was some distance from being first choice, something that impinges on his credibility and also reduced to a few days the time available to him to assess the squad and before pre-season training began. The Kane saga has been destabilising and it will take time before the sporting director, Fabio Paratici, can be assessed.

At Wolves, even before everything went stale in Nuno’s final season, the sense was of a manager who perhaps was too concerned by planning, whose structures made his side hard for better teams to break down but often frustrating in games they were expected to win. There were signs of that on the season’s opening weekend as Spurs beat Manchester City, but since then things have spun rapidly out of control.

That Spurs went into the weekend having taken fewer shots and created fewer chances than any other side in the Premier League was disappointing but perhaps not a surprise. But Nuno was supposed to make Spurs fitter and yet they covered less distance over the opening six games than anybody else in the division. The worry there is that the lack of running perhaps wasn’t just a feature of a José Mourinho side but is endemic in teams who practise tactical periodisation. The theories of Vítor Frade, which have influenced a generation of Portuguese coaches, are perhaps no longer quite so effective in the modern game as they once were.

After the opening stages stage it was possible to think that at least Tottenham had largely stopped Villa from playing, that the visitors had looked nowhere near as impressive as they had in beating Manchester United last week or even in losing at Chelsea. But as the second half opened up, that sense of control vanished. The question going forward for Nuno is whether he can find a way for Spurs to show the attacking spirit of the second half without leaving themselves quite so open.

As caginess became chaos, both sides had chances. The equaliser and the goal that restored Tottenham's advantage were similar, both beginning with a turnover and culminating in a low cross turned in, respectively, by Ollie Watkins and Matt Targett.

As haymakers continued to be flailed, Spurs were probably closer to adding a third than Villa were to finding an equaliser. But there was little sense of security, and a clear feeling that Spurs were fortunate to have regained the lead as swiftly as they did; a few more minutes at 1-1 and anxiety could easily have taken over.

Hugo Lloris has spoken of how it will take time for a manager to impose his ideas, but the doubts about Nuno have been obvious in the days since the debacle at Arsenal. Is he big enough for the job? Does he have the necessary authority or charisma? Has he effectively been cast out without hope into impossible seas?

This was a result that will ease the immediate pressure but a performance that should convince nobody. - Guardian