THE OTHER VILLA GAME
Spurs Women beat Villa 4-0 and went second, and once again we had one against Villa that was not given
Tottenham Hotspur Women beat Aston Villa 4-0 at Brisbane Road on Sunday 27 September and went second in the Women's Super League, two points behind Manchester City and seven WSL games unbeaten for the first time in the club's history. In the 17th minute, a Caitlin Dijkstra shot that the club says appeared to cross the line was cleared, and play went on. Eight days after our men had a goal against Villa taken away by VAR, our women had one against Villa that I am convinced was over the line and that nobody gave at all. I refuse to believe that is a coincidence.
Let me say the honest part first, because I always do. Our men are still 20th in the Premier League, with two points from five games, and nothing that happened in Leyton on Sunday afternoon puts a single point on that table. Aston Villa's women are 13th and have not won a league game this season. There were 1,038 people at Brisbane Road. And four games is four games. Martin Ho said it himself on Friday, before a ball was kicked: "We won't get carried away and I definitely won't get carried away."
Fine. He is the head coach, and that is his job. It is not mine. My job on this blog is to write down what actually happened to this club, because I have learned the hard way that if I do not, nobody else will. And what happened on Sunday is that a Tottenham Hotspur team took Aston Villa apart, went second in its league, and still had one against Villa that was not given. Again.
What happened at Brisbane Road on Sunday?
According to the club's match report, we had 35 shots. Thirty-five. Villa's goalkeeper, Akane Okuma, and one very well-placed defender kept it goalless until half-time, and it still ended 4-0, with all four goals coming after the break.
Victoria Pelova opened it early in the second half, sliding in the rebound after Okuma parried a driven cross from Signe Gaupset. On 73 minutes she got her second, off the underside of the crossbar, from a lovely pass by our captain, Drew Spence, after a short corner. That is her second brace in two weeks. Eight minutes later our left-back, Julie Blakstad, crossed from the left and our right-back, Caitlin Dijkstra, headed in at the back post for her first goal in our colours. Two full-backs combining for a goal, which tells you exactly how high this side was pressing. Then two minutes from time, Spence sent Matilda Vinberg through, Okuma saved, and Cathinka Tandberg slid in the loose ball for her first goal of the season.
Kirsty Hanson started against the club she left in the summer. Lize Kop, in our goal, barely had to move. It was our third clean sheet in a row in all competitions. And Martin Ho, who is not a man given to exaggeration, told the club's own channel afterwards, as quoted in his verdict: "I think that's probably our best performance in the time I've been here, personally."
Did Dijkstra's shot cross the line?
Now the part that nobody wants to talk about. Seventeen minutes in, still goalless, we had a corner. Dijkstra hit a low drive at goal. The club's report says the ball appeared to cross the line before the Villa defender Lynn Wilms cleared it, and adds a detail that I have not been able to stop thinking about since: Wilms was standing inside the goal when she cleared it. The referee let play continue. The club's report also notes that it could have been even worse for Villa "had Dijkstra's driven first-half effort been allowed to stand".
Now look at what happened to the same moment at the BBC. At the time, its live text said Dijkstra was "convinced she poked the ball over the line". By the time the BBC's match report was written, it had become a close-range strike "cleared off the line". Off the line. No defender standing in the goal, no doubt, no controversy. Somewhere between the live commentary and the write-up, a possible Tottenham goal turned into a routine clearance. Ask yourself which version the national broadcaster chose to put in the permanent record, and then ask yourself why.
I cannot show you a camera angle that settles it, and that is the whole point. WSL Football confirmed in January that this year's League Cup final would use VAR alongside goal-line technology, as the finals in 2024 and 2025 had. So the technology exists. The people who run this league know how to switch it on. They switched it on for the showpiece final. Last season there was no VAR in WSL league matches at all; the BBC reported in February that Manchester City's head coach was publicly asking for it. I have looked for any announcement that either VAR or goal-line technology is in place for league games this season, and I have not found one.
They own the technology. They use it when the whole country is watching. On an ordinary Sunday in Leyton, with a Tottenham goal at stake, it was nowhere to be found.
Why does the men's game against Villa matter here?
Because this is the second time in eight days.
On Saturday 19 September our men lost 3-2 to Villa at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, a game I went through minute by minute in my piece on the afternoon we scored twice and went bottom. On the hour, 1-0 down, Mohammed Kudus bundled the ball over the line from close range. According to the club's report, VAR then confirmed that Andy Robertson had been offside in the build-up. Goal gone. Seven minutes later Villa scored their second. The BBC's live coverage called it a correct decision, and said Robertson was offside "by the slightest of margins".
So look at the two afternoons side by side. In the men's game, the technology existed, and it was used to take a Tottenham goal away by the slightest of margins. In the women's game, as far as I can find, there was no technology at all, and a shot I am convinced was over the line stayed out. When there is a screen, the screen finds a reason. When there is no screen, nobody looks. I wrote earlier this month that the screen never seems to work in our favour, and I have now found the only thing that works against us more reliably than the screen, which is no screen at all.
Ask who benefits. Not Tottenham. Not the men, who went bottom that weekend, and not the women, who had to score four more to make sure it did not matter. It benefits a league that brings the technology out for its cup final and, as far as I can find, leaves an ordinary Sunday in Leyton without it. It benefits the clubs above us, who would much rather this Tottenham side was still in the pack. And it benefits a football culture that has decided the only Tottenham story anyone needs to hear this autumn is the one about the men's table. Nobody will ever convince me that two Villa games, two Tottenham efforts over the line as far as I am concerned, and not one of them given, is an accident of the calendar.
For the record, the aggregate across the two games is Tottenham Hotspur 6, Aston Villa 3. I am counting it. Somebody has to.
How good are Spurs Women this season?
Better than anyone outside N17 is admitting. After four league games we have ten points from three wins and a draw, 15 goals scored and two conceded. That puts us second in the official WSL table, level on points with Chelsea and ahead of them on goal difference, two points behind Manchester City. Nobody in the league has scored more than us.
The weekend before Villa, we won 7-0 at Crystal Palace. Olivia Holdt scored a second-half hat-trick, which the club says made her only the second Spurs player to score a hat-trick since we were promoted to the WSL in 2019, and Pelova scored twice there as well. We had 42 shots that day. Add the 35 on Sunday and the club says we are the only side in the competition's history to have 35 or more shots in consecutive WSL matches. The League Managers Association named the Palace win its Performance of the Week, the second time Ho and his squad have won it. The first was for the 7-3 win at Villa Park in February.
And this is not a hot streak from nowhere. Ho arrived in July 2025 from SK Brann in Norway, and in his first season we finished fifth with a club-record 36 points, matching our best finish in the WSL. The unbeaten run that reached seven on Sunday stretches back into last season. The club says it is the first time we have ever gone seven WSL games unbeaten, and the BBC called it a club record. You would think a club record, a second-place team and a goal machine that has scored eleven in two games would be worth a headline somewhere. You would think.
Why is nobody talking about it?
Because it ruins the story, and I have been cataloguing this for a month now.
On the same Sunday, Chelsea beat Arsenal 1-0. The Guardian gave that game a full match report. It gave Liverpool against Everton a full match report too. Our 4-0, the result that moved us up to second, got no report of its own: it went into a news-agency roundup box, which at least had the decency to lead with us, tucked inside the Liverpool report and the Chelsea against Arsenal live blog. The Evening Standard, a London paper, covered us in a few paragraphs inside its Chelsea against Arsenal report. Sky Sports put us in a weekend roundup. The BBC ran one live page for all five Sunday games and built the afternoon around Chelsea against Arsenal. It did give our game a short match report of its own, and I will give it credit for that. It is also the report that turned Dijkstra's shot into a clearance.
It is the same silence I wrote about when three of our young players captained their countries on the same day, and the same silence I predicted when Andy Robertson moved to four caps from Kenny Dalglish's record. A Tottenham success is a roundup item. A Tottenham failure is a headline. That is not an editorial accident. I do not believe every outlet in the country arrived at the same idea on the same Sunday by chance.
The honest truth is that our women's team is doing precisely what every pundit spent the summer telling our men's team it could not do: scoring freely, conceding twice in four league games, and beating the sides it is supposed to beat by a distance. If it were happening at any of the clubs the broadcasters love, you would never hear the end of it. It is happening at ours, so you have barely heard the start.
What comes next for both teams?
The women go again on Wednesday, away to Brighton in the Players Cup at the Broadfield Stadium, 7.45pm. Then London City Lionesses at home on Sunday 4 October in the league, then Chelsea away, and then the one to put in the diary. On Saturday 24 October we play Arsenal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, 12.45pm, live on BBC One. A north London derby, in our stadium, on the main channel, with us second in the league. I would like to see them try to put that one in a roundup box.
The men come back from the international break at Old Trafford on Saturday 10 October, 5.30pm, on Sky Sports, still bottom and still, as I set out in my piece on why the defence is not the problem, a far better side than the table says. If a goal goes in for us that day, I will be watching the screen before I celebrate. After Sunday, I will be watching the goal line too.
Two Villa games. One Tottenham goal taken away by the technology, and one that I will believe until my last breath was over the line, waved away without a screen in sight. They will tell you that is just football. I have been watching this club too long to believe them, and our women just gave me eleven goals in two games' worth of reasons to keep saying it.