The Holy Trinity: Aston Villa conclusions from abject Premier League loss against Tottenham Hotspur

Villa took their eye off the ball and dropped a rancid stinker days before crunch fixtures in Europe and in the league

As Sunday nights go, this was rotten. When a football team serves up a performance that makes you long for the days of Heartbeat episodes that seemed to last for three hours, something isn’t right.

Aston Villa were beaten 2-1 at home by Tottenham Hotspur, sparking a load of external guff about letting an appalling Spurs team off the hook and an army of enraged Villa supporters trying to get their heads round what exactly the plan was supposed to be.

Unai Emery evidently sees the Europa League as his priority. He chose not to acknowledge it publicly but this was a compromised line-up for a Premier League match that mattered.

There’s an argument that putting out a team like that would be tantamount to shamefully tossing away the game even if Villa had already achieved their aims in the league. They haven’t.

Making the first substitution after an hour and the next two with five minutes left of a showing like that was a tacit admission that Villa just didn’t really give a shit. I cannot fathom that in any circumstances, never mind at this stage of a season that could yet end with nothing.

Here’s your Holy Trinity of match conclusions: