Villa lost to a Tottenham side reduced to 10 men for more than hour at Villa Park thanks to a brace from Rafael van der Vaart, despite Marc Albrighton’s 82nd minute goal setting up a grandstand(ish) finish.

The Dutchman took advantage of some slack defending, ghosting in from left to tap in Hutton’s centre at the near post, brilliantly created by a visionary pass from Luka Modric. He doubled his tally midway through the 2nd half to cap a Tottenham break from their own half – led by Gareth Bale enjoying some rare space on the right away from Eric Lichaj who kept him quite throughout the game on his own flank – with what was text book example of doing the simple things well. In this case, a low, first time shot to the far post. Easy.

Marc Albrighton showed the value of inverting wingers when he was struggling to beat the double team on his own wing, sending an inswinger from the left that forced Gomes to assume that James Collins would get on the end of. The captain for the day didn’t get a touch, but the ball had enough bend on it that it curled in at the far post anyway.

Tottenham had been reduced to 10 men harshly when Jermaine Defoe was adjudged to have led with his elbow in an aerial challenge with James Collins in the 27th minute. It was just one of a number of decisions that Martin Atkinson got wrong and it’s inexplicable how he could employ such a strict view of a challenge like this, yet somehow fail to see enough wrong with Gomes’ challenge on Emile Heskey to award a penalty earlier in the game. Inconsistent.

Harry Redknapp elected not to make any tactical changes in response to having his lone striker sent off, sticking with a strikerless system, sitting deep and hitting Villa on the break. He really didn’t need to make such changes, we all know that we struggle to break down teams that sit back.

Emile Heskey was forced to withdraw six minutes before half time, Houllier sending Nathan Delfouneso on as his replacement. Maybe with hindsight he might have elected to beef up the midfield, Jonathon Hogg and Fabian Delph (making an amazing return to the starting line-up following his ACL injury) struggling to contain the Tottenham trio of VdV, Modric and Palacios.

Perhaps he assumed that Redknapp would make the conventional switch of a midfielder for a striker – a 4-5-0 to a 4-4-1 – at half time, we’d even out the midfield battle and make our extra man pay in the final third. If so, perhaps that’s what makes Redknapp successful, he really didn’t need to change anything and he didn’t for 75 minutes when Crouch came on for VdV.

Houllier did make a predictable switch at half time; withdrawing Jonathon Hogg, who was carrying a booking and looking like he was outside his comfort zone, bringing in Stiliyan Petrov who was also making a surprise return to the match day squad.

Villa looked uncertain going forward throughout the 2nd half and always vulnerable to the counter attack. Houllier seemed to signal for Robert Pires to warm up before Tottenham doubled their lead and he was right to recognise the need for some creativity, but it’s unclear how much of that Pires is able to bring and I’m sure many Villa fans would have preferred to see Barry Bannan come on.

As it was, despite Marc Albrighton halving the deficit with eight minutes plus stoppages left to play, Villa never really looked likely of scoring twice. And so it proved, even with James Collins once again playing as an auxiliary striker, desperately trying to find a late goal. A theme is developing.

Overall, once again there were an enormous number of positives to be drawn from yet another loss. Eric Lichaj was excellent and his battle against the much hyped Bale will have caught many eyes. Although understandably tentative at times, Fabian Delph showed signs of why he’s held in the high regard a return straight into the starting line-up signals.

Only Houllier will know the rationale behind starting Delph, and though it didn’t look the wisest choice at times, boy can that kid spot a through ball. There’s no question that he’s a special talent and I’m thrilled to see him back, despite the result.

I thought Downing and Albrighton were pretty good, Delfouneso too when he had time to settle (although I wish he’d show the sort of selfishness generally associated with a striker). I thought Gabby, if anyone, thoroughly deserved a goal today and it took some fine goal keeping from Gomes to keep him out more than once.

Once again, it’s frustrating to be seeking positives from the individual performances and seeing the unquestionable potential in so many young players, but that’s where we are. We really need results, but we’re in the middle of a tough schedule that we all knew was coming.

Some of the key stats tell their own story though. 28 efforts on goal from Villa today, 10 on target and nine saved by Gomes. Tottenham had 13 shots, four on target, Friedel saving twice. It’s the same old story of failing to finish and then being punished by some silly defensive errors.

It is what it is, we move on now to Eastlands on Tuesday night, the final game of 2010. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to put this year to bed and get cracking at 2011.

Aston Villa Starting XI: Friedel, Lichaj, Cuellar, Collins, Warnock, Albrighton, Delph, Hogg, Downing, Agbonlahor, Heskey. Subs: Guzan, Pires, Delfouneso, Petrov, Reo-Coker, Clark, Bannan.

Spurs Starting XI: Gomes, Hutton, Dawson, Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto, Lennon, Palacios, Modric, Bale, Van der Vaart, Defoe. Subs: Cudicini, Jenas, Bassong, Kranjcar, Corluka, Pavlyuchenko, Crouch.