Tottenham Hotspur Vs Aston Villa – Premier League 2025/2026: Thomas Frank Tactics Vs Unai Emery – Tactical Preview

Tottenham Hotspur will face Aston Villa on Sunday at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for game week eight of the Premier League.

It will be a good opportunity for Spurs to continue their journey to the top spots.

They have been climbing up the standings to reach third place with 14 points, just two points away from the leaders, Arsenal.

The start of the season under the management of the new head coach, Thomas Frank, has been positive so far, especially in terms of the home games that the team has played.

Tottenham Hotspur kicked off the season with a convincing 3-0 win over Burnley.

They then went to the Etihad Stadium to beat Manchester City 0-2 before losing at home against Bournemouth.

What followed was a 0-3 away win against West Ham United, a draw against Brighton, another draw against Wolves, and finally a crucial away win against Leeds United.

Overall, the results and performances have been positive under Franks management so far, as he has relatively succeeded in making the team much more compact and organised defensively, and capable of resisting even when facing powerful attacking teams such as Manchester City.

That said, a lot of work is still needed to make the playmaking and the attacking aspects more powerful and reliable, as Tottenham have not really been that convincing in this regard until now.

This tactical preview of the match between Aston Villa and Tottenham will mainly focus on identifying what Frank has changed in Tottenham’s tactics and what he needs to focus on when facing Aston Villa in order to get a positive result at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The analysis will, therefore, consider Aston Villa’s strengths and weaknesses in order to identify how Frank can exploit them and adapt his match plan according to the opponent’s tactics.

Tottenham Tactical Changes Under Thomas Frank

Franks arrival helped change the spirit and atmosphere around and within the club despite the higher pressure compared to what he used to have at Brentford.

That is already a partial success for Frank, who succeeded in making a good enough first impression and first impact on the team despite coming from a club with less ambitions than Tottenham.

Franks experience, especially at Brentford but also with the Danish youth national teams and Brøndby, helped Frank a lot in dealing well with the situations he faced with Tottenham at the start of this season.

Tottenham Defensive Fixes

Frank tried to build a more compact team from a defensive perspective compared to last season, so he changed the team’s defensive style to a more effective one.

He has done that by narrowing the spaces between defenders and between the midfield and defensive lines to limit the opponents’ passes and movements in that dangerous zone of the field.

Frank’s side was capable of limiting spaces and showcasing the excellent defensive work they had done when they faced Manchester City.

They finished the match with a clean sheet.

That result gave the whole team an additional boost to continue playing with more defensive resilience even when facing big rivals.

If Frank succeeds in preserving and reinforcing these collective and individual defensive qualities within the team, Tottenham will most likely achieve great results this season.

The following picture highlights not just Tottenham’s close defensive lines and the little spaces that they concede to Manchester City, but also their focus on filling the middle of the pitch and narrowing their marking in that area to avoid penetrations or dangerous passes while keeping the wide areas relatively uncovered.

Tottenham Improved Dangerous High Pressing

Another aspect that Frank succeeded in changing and improving at Tottenham is their initial high pressing and how effective and dangerous they can be from that perspective.

In fact, Tottenham started using high pressing as a concrete tool for goalscoring.

Thanks to thei