PREMIER LEAGUE: Tottenham 1 Aston Villa 2: MARTIN O'NEILL was forced to stretch the Aston Villa budget to sign Ashley Young from Watford in January of last year. A fee of €12 million was always going to prompt a few winces in the directors' lounge. As the winger lit up White Hart Lane last night, they would doubtless have joked that they never doubted their manager.
Young was irrepressible, running riot with his pace and playing a full part in his team's first Premier League victory at a London ground for four years. He had a hand in the opening goal and scored the second, courtesy of a handling error by Tottenham goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes.
The north London club remain rooted to the foot of the table, a single point from four games representing their worst start to a Premier League season, and were booed off. They were second best, their disparate parts failing to gel as coherently as Villa.
Tottenham's late riposte was little more than consolation. Jemaine Jenas's volley from distance was hopeful but it ricocheted off Darren Bent to wrong foot Brad Friedel.
Gabriel Agbonlahor drifted across to overload against Tottenham's debutant Vedran Corluka and when Young found him in the early running, his low cross prompted sharp intakes of breath around White Hart Lane. John Carew's flick took the ball away from Gareth Barry but the unmarked Nigel Reo-Coker steered home at the far post.
Roman Pavlyuchenko, the Russia striker, made his debut after his €17.4 million move from Spartak Moscow. He was afforded a muscular introduction to the game in England and he can be relieved that he will not face Martin Laursen every week.
The pace of the match was unremitting and Young strode forward to seize centre stage with nine minutes gone in the second half.
• Guardian Service
TOTTENHAM: Gomes, Corluka, Woodgate, Dawson (Giovani 62), Bale, Lennon, Zokora (Bentley 46), Huddlestone, Modric (Jenas 29), Pavlyuchenko, Bent. Subs Not Used: Cesar, Gilberto, Campbell, O'Hara. Booked: Dawson.
ASTON VILLA: Friedel, Luke Young, Laursen, Davies, Shorey (Gardner 88), Ashley Young, Petrov, Reo-Coker, Barry, Agbonlahor (Harewood 84), Carew (Milner 63). Subs Not Used: Guzan, Knight, Routledge, Cuellar. Booked: Shorey, Carew, Agbonlahor, Ashley Young.
Referee: Steve Bennett(Kent).
