BIG ANGE'S SPARKLERS

Spurs in the mood to catch fire after Solanke double helps to hammer top-four rivals Villa

- MIKE WALTERS

BIG Ange was right all along. If you want to grow a beautiful garden, you've got to handle some fertiliser.

After 45 minutes of pure compost, Tottenham served up a fragrant bed of roses, as two-goal Dominic Solanke denied lacklustre Aston Villa the chance to go third.

Unai Emery's side led at the break, but it turns out they were only leading us up the garden path.

This was a rare taste of capital punishment for Villa, who had won nine of their previous 13 Premier League away games in London under Emery - the best ratio by a manager at a single club since Richard Keys and Andy Gray invented football in 1992.

If your Bonfire Night pyre tomorrow is as soggy and unresponsive as Villa's collapse, it will have no spark, it won't catch fire and you'll wonder why you bothered.

But Tottenham, who have closed to within two points of the neighbours down the Seven Sisters Road, were in full bloom after Ange Postecoglou's fertiliser therapy.

And the chuntering which greeted the Spurs ringmaster's decision to hook skipper Heung-min Son after 56 minutes had long turned to exultation by the time James Maddison's exquisite free-kick in stoppage time completed a stirring second-half revival.