3-2

*Dublin unwraps presence*

Catalysts alter chemistry without changing themselves, and simply by being himself Dion Dublin has brought a greater flexibility to Aston Villa’s attack just as their stride at the top of the Premiership had begun to falter. This victory kept Villa beyond the reach of their pursuers for another week.

What remains to be seen is how successfully John Gregory can accommodate Dublin as an extra striker while retaining the defensive solidity which has been the bedrock of Villa’s early challenge. As Gregory said: “Defences win championships.”

The dreamlike quality of Dublin’s start to his Villa career on Saturday, once he had overcome a 75th-second booking for a foul, was partly the result of more nightmarish defending by a Tottenham defence who had built their house with straw. Nevertheless Dublin announced his presence with two astutely taken goals in four minutes just past the half-hour and was denied a hat-trick only by an offside flag.

Eyebrows were raised when Villa paid Coventry City £5.75 million for a 29-year-old, even though other clubs had been willing to pay more. Yet Dublin is surely a snip compared with the £7 million that Brian Little, Gregory’s predecessor as Villa manager, paid for Stan Collymore 18 months ago, and they did bank £12 million after Dwight Yorke went to Manchester United.

Before Dublin came on to the market Gregory wasted few opportunities talking up Collymore as a player who had discovered the joys of hard work and team play. No longer a man of manic moods and fitful form, we were told, Stan had been reborn.

A cynical voice suggested Gregory was talking up Collymore so that Villa could eventually sell him at a high enough price to recoup much of the money they had so obviously misspent. But perhaps this is doing one of the Premiership’s most straightforward managers an injustice.

It is hard to imagine many of Gregory’s contemporaries declaring, as he did after this win, that “looking at our league position now I’ll probably be the only one to mess it up”. With more than two-thirds of the Premiership programme to come it seemed a little early to be dusting down the sackcloth. Yet Gregory is right to the extent that his team selections over the next four weeks will have a distinct bearing on whether Villa will still be setting the pace at the top going into Christmas and the new year.

Villa’s next three home games are against Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal. Should they win these their title pretensions will become serious indeed, although it might be as well to remember that their closing sequence of away fixtures next spring are at Anfield, Old Trafford and Highbury.

This performance demonstrated the new extent of Gregory’s options and the risk of altering a trusted formula. As he pointed out, the arrival of Dublin means that the team can now count on a regular presence in front of goal when Collymore, as is his won’t, drifts out to the left.

Collymore probably has more natural talent than Dublin but the latter’s is more reliable. When John Scales inadvertently laid Alan Wright’s corner back towards the near post Dublin was perfectly positioned to direct the ball into the net. And when Scales and Darren Anderton left a clearance to each other Dublin was again on hand to exploit the error, striding through unchallenged to slip the ball under Espen Baardsen’s diving body.

Without Dublin Villa could not have been so sure of taking such chances and even now Gregory has to decide whether Merson’s scoring potential will be wasted if he continues to operate so deep. Collymore, it has to be said, responded well to playing alongside Dublin, scoring himself after the fast-maturing Lee Hendrie had punished a poor clearance by Ramon Vega with a cleverly angled pass.

At that point Villa looked the part of a side who have led the league since the second week in September. By the end of the match, however, they were clinging to victory with something approaching desperation.

George Graham still has few peers as a reorganiser of teams when games are slipping away. The fact that Spurs, deprived by injuries of Les Ferdinand and Chris Armstrong and with Steffen Iversen barely match fit, came so close to forcing a draw proved the point.

The introduction of Vega after half-time enabled Spurs to play three at the back and stiffen a midfield previously overrun. Where Merson and Ian Taylor had ruled they now all but disappeared, leaving doubts about the wisdom of breaking up the Taylor-Hendrie-Thompson format in order to play an extra striker.

Just before the hour Anderton struck the underside of the Villa crossbar from 25 yards before scoring with a penalty after Ugo Ehiogu had brought down David Ginola. With 15 minutes left Vega added Spurs’ second after Allan Nielsen had flicked on Anderton’s corner and at the last a superb cross from Ginola was shinned into the side netting by another Spurs substitute, Rory Allen.

Dublin had made the Premiership leaders more watchable but after conceding three goals in 10 league games they had now let in two in 90 minutes. Celta Vigo’s 3-1 win at Villa Park in the Uefa Cup four nights earlier might have started something.