Aston Villa manager Dean Smith has praised the quality within the Tottenham Hotspur squad.
Smith, who guided Villa to promotion back to the Premier League singled out four players within the ranks of the Champions League finalists.
The Villa boss admitted that the loss of Harry Kane is a blow but singled out Lucas Moura, Heung-min Son, Dele Alli and recent signing Steven Bergwijn as players who possess the quality to be a threat.
Villa Park will host the Premier League clash between both sides this afternoon who are each looking for the win for very different reasons.
Spurs can move within a point of fourth placed Chelsea, while a win for Villa would see them climb to fifteenth.
Smith expects a completely different Spurs side compared to the one they faced on the opening day of the season in North London with Jose Mourinho having taken over from Mauricio Pochettino in late November.
Smith told the official Spurs site: “It’s going to be a different team to the one we played against on the first day of the season because they’ve got a new Head Coach. Obviously, Jose’s in there now and he’ll have different ideas to Mauricio Pochettino.
“They’re without Harry Kane, which is a big loss, but they’ve got an awful lot of quality within that team – Bergwijn, Son, Moura and Dele Alli, who’s scoring goals now. They’ve got enough of a threat. They were Champions League finalists last season and they’ve been regular top four finishers, but we’ve got to concentrate on ourselves and that’s the most important thing.”
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