Van der Vaart proving top buy

Tottenham 2 Aston Villa 1:OF ALL the purchases made by Premier League clubs during the summer transfer window, the last looks the biggest bargain at a mere €9 million.

Tottenham Hotspur signed Rafael van der Vaart just two hours before the deadline and already the Dutchman is promising to transform not only the shape of Spurs' season but the shape of their game.

Having inspired Harry Redknapp's side to a 4-1 win against FC Twente in the Champions League three nights earlier with an opening goal of rare quality, Van der Vaart scored two more against Aston Villa on Saturday to bring Tottenham's injury-blighted side a victory that at one point seemed unlikely once Gerard Houllier's team had gone ahead and continued to take the game to their opponents at every opportunity.

The first was a header on the stroke of half-time, the second an exquisite sleight of foot that left Villa's Richard Dunne lunging at thin air as Van der Vaart turned away from him to drive the ball past Brad Friedel.

Essentially Van der Vaart is a creative midfield player who likes to get into scoring positions. He started on the right in this match but was soon moving to the middle to link with Peter Crouch.

All three of the goals Van der Vaart has scored for Spurs have come from balls headed down or back by Crouch. So it was not altogether surprising when Redknapp took off his second striker, Roman Pavlyuchenko, at half-time in order to restore Aaron Lennon to the right wing and leave the Dutchman to feed off Crouch in the centre.

"I felt that in the first half we were open, too open," Redknapp said, "with two up and Rafael floating around where he wanted to play. In the second half we changed it and stuck him in behind the striker. He's always looking to get on the ball and he's always looking to score."

After the international break Tottenham face a tricky fixture at Fulham, followed four days later by what could be a defining Champions League encounter with the holders, Internazionale, in Milan.

Monsieur Houllier's holiday at Aston Villa was short-lived. The win at Wolves promised more of the same at White Hart Lane and when the rejuvenated Emile Heskey sprinted to the byline to dispossess Sebastien Bassong before setting up a tap-in at the far post for Marc Albrighton after 16 minutes Villa appeared the more likely winners.

Then Heskey limped off 10 minutes before half-time with a dead leg leaving Houllier to observe diplomatically that the replacement, John Carew, "did a good job but it's not the same player".

Guardian Service