National media all saying same thing after Tottenham demolish Aston Villa

Tottenham picked up a huge three points over Aston Villa this past weekend in the race to finish fourth in the Premier League. Goals from James Maddison, Brennan Johnson, Son Heung-min and Timo Werner at Villa Park saw Spurs thrash their rivals with John McGinn sent off midway through the second half.

With the Lilywhites keeping their first Premier League clean sheet in three months, Postecoglou was full of praise for how his players handled the importance of the clash at Villa Park. «I was really pleased with the way we handled the whole day,» he said in a press conference.

«Obviously we knew it was a significant game coming here, tough venue, good opponent. I just thought, obviously the atmosphere here, they get behind their team. I thought with all that, the context of all that, first half we did really well, just to make them work hard more than anything else, they had to try to contain us, and the threats they had we snuffed out.

»I had a sense towards the back end of the first half that they were beginning to really tire a little bit. That was the message at half-time, just to persevere, stay calm, play our football, maintain the intensity, which is going to be important. And we did. We got off to a flyer, the quality of our football was excellent, to see out the game."

Following on from Postecoglou's glowing verdict, the national media have also offered praise with one key point made after Spurs closed the gap to Villa down to two points.

The Guardian's Ben Fisher wrote...

Last week James Maddison enjoyed going head to head against his Tottenham teammate Micky van de Ven in a darts challenge with the elite players Michael Smith and Nathan Aspinall and the Spurs No 10 stepped up to the oche here to twist a cagey