Aston Villa 0 Spurs 4 - match report

The claret and blues shipped eight goals in their last Premier League outing against Chelsea and they were guilty of more sloppy play against Spurs who could have won by more but for the heroics of Villa keeper Brad Guzan.

Villa boss Paul Lambert made three changes from the side which were thrashed 8-0 at Chelsea as Joe Bennett, Karim El Ahmadi and Fabian Delph came into the side.

Eric Lichaj and Barry Bannan dropped to the bench while Andreas Weimann was ruled out completely through injury.

Tottenham made the early running and were presented with a free-kick in a dangerous position in the sixth minute when Chris Herd, who gave away a penalty and a free-kick which led to goals at Stamford Bridge, fouled Jermain Defoe on the edge of the box.

Bale could only strike his effort straight at the Villa wall although Kyle Walker brought the first save out of Guzan with a fizzing low volley which the American pushed past the post moments later.

The influence of Wales international started to grow and he brought a spectacular diving save out of Guzan with a curling effort from 25 yards shortly afterwards.

Villa seemed unable to get balls to Christian Benteke and Brett Holman to stick as the visitors continued to pose the greater threat, as they won 15 corners in the first half.

Lambert's side were given a let off in the 21st minute when Ashley Westwood gave the ball away cheaply to Defoe who played in Aaron Lennon and his low angled shot was saved by Guzan at the near post.

William Gallas saw his header saved well by Guzan from the resulting corner delivered by former Villa loanee Walker while Emmanuel Adebayor headed straight at Guzan from a Bale flag-kick moments later.

The home side had a rare chance on the counter attack in the 35th minute when El Ahmadi picked up a loose ball in the final third and spread the play to Matthew Lowton who crossed for Holman, but the Australia international failed to direct his effort on target from a difficult angle.

Guzan was called into action again in the 40th minute when he parried a powerful shot by Bale while Villa were dealt a blow before half-time when Nathan Baker limped out and was replaced by Stephen Ireland shortly before half-time.

Lambert reacted to Villa's poor first-half showing with the introduction of Marc Albrighton for Westwood during the interval as the claret and blues switched to a 4-2-3-1 formation.

The home side's tempo improved and Benteke brought a save out of Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris when he got on the end of Ireland's teasing crossfield ball only for the assistant referee to flag for offside.

However, it was Spurs who broke the deadlock in the 57th minute after some neat build-up play on the edge of the penalty area culminated in a perfectly-weighted ball from Kyle Naughton for Defoe and he toe poked the ball through Guzan's legs

Tottenham doubled their lead through Bale four minutes later when they punished some sloppy Villa play on the counter attack.

Moussa Demble's clearance fell to Clark whose loose ball was picked up by Bale and his rampaging run from near the centre circle ended with cool finish after he drew Guzan off his line and slid the ball into the empty net.

Bale then added Tottenham's third in the 73rd minute when he got on the end of Lennon's clever ball and placed his shot into the bottom-right corner of the net from near the penalty spot.

And the Wales wing wizard notched up his hat-trick in the 84th minute of the game when he got on the end of Gylfi Sigurdsson's cutback to slam the ball past Guzan.

Marc Albrighton struck a speculative effort from distance which was easily saved by Lloris but that was as much as Villa could manage in the remainder of the contest in which they created little in the way of goalscoring chances.

By Timothy Abraham