WHEN Roy Hodgson last week tried to illustrate the contribution of Andros Townsend to a match, he borrowed an anecdote from NASA. It seemed more appropriate to adopt the parlance of Neilston yesterday to describe the winger's role in putting Tottenham Hotpsur ahead against Aston Villa.
Townsend was just a wee bit jammy.
The 22-year-old signed a new four-year contract with Tottenham last week, an addendum to a week during which he had already scored for England, qualified for next summer's World Cup and had his usefulness illustrated by a joke about a monkey in space. The latter point is reference to Hodgson's now infamous remark and the midfielder continued to orbit prominence when returning to action with his club.
Townsend was an effective threat against Villa but he will reflect sheepishly on his opening goal, intending to deliver a cross into the penalty area after 31 minutes only to watch as it skipped off the turf and past goalkeeper Brad Guzan. It was a goal which sparked celebrations among the visiting support but also a flare which then struck assistant referee David Bryan on the back.
Townsend continued to smoulder out wide for Spurs, although his side were also given some cause for concern following the arrival of Christian Benteke as a substitute after an hour. The Villa striker sent one header over and had another stabbed finish saved by Hugo Lloris.
The visitors showed impressive cut and thrust for the second after 69 minutes, too - Roberto Soldado applying the final touch to an impressive passing display.
'Flare investigation'
The Football Association has launched an investigation after assistant referee David Bryan was yesterday struck with a flare during at Villa Park.
The incident occurred during the first half of the match - in which Tottenham Hotspur won 2-0 - and police have confirmed that two men have since been arrested. An FA spokesperson last night said: "This is unacceptable. We will await the officials' report and will be speaking to the clubs."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article