U21s: Tottenham Hotspur 5-3 Aston Villa

Aston Villa fought all the way but lost out to Premier League 2 leaders Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday afternoon.

The Young Lions led after two minutes and were 2-1 ahead at half-time via goals from Todd Alcock and Kyrie Pierre either side of a reply from Will Lankshear.

Spurs turned the game on its head with two goals in two minutes, from Lankshear and Damola Ajayi, at the start of the second half before Jude Soonsup-Bell netted and Lankshear completed his hat-trick to make it 5-2.

Tommi O’Reilly pulled one back in the closing minutes, taking advantage of a defensive error to score Villa’s third.

Villa travelled to north London looking to be the first team to take points off Spurs in PL2 this season, and things started positively for the visitors.

O’Reilly showed great vision to set Jimoh-Aloba racing away down the left wing, with the forward assessing his options before pulling the ball back to the edge of the area where the onrushing Alcock sidefooted a deflected effort past Aaron Maguire.

Tottenham had won all ten of their previous league matches this term and they struck back after 15 minutes.

Lankshear beat the offside trap and collected a lofted through ball before lobbing James Wright to level the scores.

Wright made a couple of fine saves in the ensuing minutes, allowing his side to forge ahead once again after 25 minutes.

O’Reilly’s reverse pass released Pierre behind the Spurs backline and the winger slotted a shot past Maguire after going through one-on-one.

The away side took their one-goal lead into the break, but they soon felt the force of the hosts’ attacking prowess in the second half.

Lankshear equalised with a close range finish after 53 minutes before they took the lead less than 60 seconds later when Ajayi picked out the bottom corner with a low drive.

Spurs bagged another quickfire double later in the half, scoring twice in four minutes, to put the game beyond Villa.

First, Soonsup-Bell controlled a cross and tapped home and then Lankshear completed his hat-trick to make it 5-2.

The scoring wasn’t done there, however, as O’Reilly pounced on a defensive mix-up to pull one back.