Aston Villa aim to deepen Tottenham’s misery in FA Cup clash

Tottenham Hotspur welcomes Aston Villa to North London at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for Saturday’s FA Cup third-round tie.

Spurs fell to a late 3-2 defeat at AFC Bournemouth last time out, leaving them languishing 14th in the Premier League standings with 27 points from 21 matches.

Villa were held to a goalless draw at Crystal Palace and missed the chance to close the gap at the summit.

Match preview

Tottenham have lost two of their last three FA Cup ties against Aston Villa, going out against the Villans in the fourth round last season. The last team to eliminate Spurs from the FA Cup in consecutive seasons was Manchester United in 2007-08/2008-09.

Aston Villa have already won 2-1 at Tottenham in the Premier League this season. As a top-flight side, the last team they beat twice away from home in a single campaign was Norwich City in 2012/13.

Spurs have progressed from 18 of their last 19 FA Cup third-round ties, doing so in each of the last 11 campaigns since a 2-0 loss at Arsenal in 2013/14.

The Villans have won their last two FA Cup third-round ties, having been eliminated at this stage in each of the seven campaigns before this.

Morgan Rogers has been involved in five goals in four appearances against Tottenham in all competitions (3 goals, 2 assists), scoring and assisting in Aston Villa’s 2-1 win against them in the FA Cup last season.

Team news

Tottenham Hotspur

Lucas Bergvall and Rodrigo Bentancur were both forced off with injuries in the midweek loss to Bournemouth and are unavailable.

Mohammed Kudus, Dominic Solanke, James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Destiny Udogie are sidelined with injuries.

Aston Villa

Emiliano Martinez has been ruled out with a calf injury he sustained in the midweek draw at Palace.

The Argentine joins Amadou Onana and Ross Barkley on the visitors’ injury list.

While Evann Guessand is away on international duty with Ivory Coast at the Africa Cup of Nations.

Predicted line-ups

Tottenham Hotspur: Kinsky, Spence, Danso, Van de Ven, Davies, Palhinha, Grey, Kolo Muani, Simons, Tel, Richarlison.

Aston Villa: Bizot, Garcia, Konsa, Torres, Digne, Bogarde, Tielemans, McGinn, Rogers, Sancho, Malen.