Next Sunday, 2nd of November 2014, a clearly underachieving Aston Villa will measure forces with an inconsistent Tottenham side at Villa Park for round ten of the English Premier League, on a match that the home side desperately needs to win in order to put an end to their recent bad streak.

After granting a fantastic win at Anfield Road back in September, the fortunes of Aston Villa at the EPL have changed drastically. Since that match, the Villans lost all their matches and gave their manager, Paul Lambert, something to think about. With three wins on their first five matches, Aston Villa were sitting comfortably on the first half of the EPL table but an heavy home defeat against Arsenal late in September precipitated their downfall. It is fair to say, however, that in their last five matches, the Villans went up against fairly strong teams, including three title contenders (Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City) and no one can blame them for losing those particular clashes. Nevertheless, those consecutive defeats opened some deep breaches into the team and last Monday they weren’t able to get anything better than a defeat against QPR when they visited Loftus Road.

Next weekend’s match against the Spurs is of the utmost importance for Paul Lambert and his team, since another defeat could throw them into the relegation zone. For that match, the Villans’ boss will not be able to rely on the contribution of Kozak and Delph, who are currently sidelined due to injury.

As for Tottenham, their inconsistency so far this season has caused them some irreparable damage. The Spurs have already lost four of the nine matches they participated in and their recent performances have also been far from brilliant. Their new boss, Mauricio Pochettino, has a Herculean task ahead of him: bringing some peace of mind to the team, and their last weekend’s home defeat against Newcastle certainly didn’t help to increase their players’ already fragile confidence levels.

A midweek win over Brighton for the Capital One Cup, on what was in fact a very poor match, could just offer the Spurs a small boost on their motivation and help them to face next Sunday’s complicated match with renewed hopes. For the clash against the Villans, Pochettino will probably still not be able to rely on the contribution of Bentaleb, Walker and Lennon, all sidelined due to injury.

Despite their recent inconsistency, Tottenham enjoy from a slight favouritism for next Sunday’s match, as it is not easy for the home side to lift up their heads after five consecutive defeats.

Aston Villa

Stats: W-0 L-5 D-0

Recent Form - LLLLL

Tottenham

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

Recent Form - WLWLW

Possible Line-ups

Aston Villa (4-3-3) – Guzan - Hutton - Cissokho - Vlaar - Clark - Westwood - Cleverley - Sanchez - Weimann - Agbonlahor - Benteke

Tottenham (4-4-1-1) - Lloris - Vertonghen - Kaboul - Rose - Dier - Capoue - Mason - Chadli - Eriksen - Lamella - Soldado

Prediction

Aston Villa 1 Tottenham 1