"GOOOOOOOOOAL!" Drury's voice boomed. "Aston Villa strike back! And who else but Theodore Bjorn? A towering, unstoppable header from the teenager! Welcome to the Premier League, son! It's two-one!"
On twitter timeline exploded!
"Theo is an absolute monster in the air! Alderweireld got completely bodied."
"He's carrying this Villa team on his back right now."
"What a header! Spurs thought they killed the game, but the kid refuses to die."
On the pitch, Theodore didn't celebrate.
His face remained dead serious.
He sprinted straight into the Spurs net, grabbed the ball, and jogged back toward the center circle, completely ignoring the cheering Villa fans in the away end.
They were still losing.
It wasn't time to celebrate yet.
On the touchline, Pochettino looked anxious.
Despite the lead, the momentum had violently shifted. He immediately gestured for his men to press higher and kill the game off with a third goal.
Three minutes later, Spurs mounted another terrifying assault.
Son Heung-min led the charge.
This time, he popped up on the right flank.
After throwing a quick step-over to unbalance Targett, Son chopped the ball inside onto his lethal left foot.
He began his run, driving straight to the edge of the penalty area.
He looked up, set his feet, and make a cross.
Just as his boot connected with the ball, a blur of claret and blue threw itself across his vision.
Thud!
Theodore had tracked back half the length of the pitch to throw his body in the way.
He took the shot flush against his ribs, perfectly executing a massive block for the second time in the match.
The ball ricocheted off Theodore, dropping kindly into space.
He scrambled to his feet, instantly securing possession.
Villa's counter-attack was on!
...
After absorbing the impact of Son's shot, Theodore scrambled to his feet.
He didn't take a touch to settle the ball.
Hesitation in this midfield meant getting your ankles snapped. Instead, he launched a booming, first-time pass deep into the Tottenham half.
It was the right decision, and the ball sailed into the path of Anwar El Ghazi on the left wing.
The towering Dutchman brought it down in the attacking third, looking to isolate his man, but the Premier League didn't afford wingers the luxury of time.
Moussa Sissoko and Kyle Walker-Peters collapsed on him like a ton of bricks.
They used their sheer physical mass to body El Ghazi off the ball, stripping possession before he could even look up.
They gave him absolutely no chance.
"And Villa's counter breaks down in seconds," Peter Drury noted, his tone bordering on sympathetic.
"They simply cannot cope with the sheer physicality of this Tottenham press."
The ball spilled to Harry Winks, who immediately shuttled it to Christian Eriksen.
Tottenham's attack rolled forward again.
In the stands, tens of thousands of Spurs fans roared, demanding blood.
A 2-1 lead wasn't enough, they wanted to bury the newly promoted side before halftime!
Eriksen collected the ball in the center circle and drifted through the Villa midfield like a ghost.
Grealish and McGinn threw themselves at him, trying to disrupt his rhythm, but their efforts were useless against the Dane.
Dropping his shoulder and shifting his weight, Eriksen glided past both Villa men in a matter of seconds, leaving them grasping at thin air.
He carried the ball straight to the edge of the penalty box.
Inside the box, Kane and Son were making darting runs, dragging the center-backs out of shape.
Everyone in the stadium expected the through-ball.
Instead, Eriksen shot!
Theodore, reading the play a fraction of a second late, threw himself into a desperate slide to block the shot.
He was a step too slow.
The ball fizzed past his outstretched boot, hurtling toward the bottom corner.
Crack!
The ball smashed flush against the base of the post and rocketed clear.
Villa had survived by a miracle.
"Eriksen nearly tears the net off!" Drury gasped over the microphone. "Aston Villa are hanging on by their fingernails!"
On Twitter, the timeline was brutal as neutral fans and Villa supporters watched the massacre unfold.
"Spurs are playing on easy mode right now."
"Villa's midfield is getting sliced open. If Dean Smith doesn't park the bus, this is ending 6-1."
"Apart from Theo, this Villa squad looks like a bunch of boys playing against men."
"Wake the fuck up, Villa! You're getting embarrassed."
The clock ticked into the thirty-third minute.
Sensing the visitors were on the ropes, Tottenham began to monopolize possession.
Leading by a goal, they showed no urgency, stroking the ball around the midfield and letting the clock bleed.
Down on the touchline, Dean Smith was screaming himself hoarse, ordering his men to hold their defensive shape and avoid pressing aggressively.
Going into the dressing room down 2-1 was a lifeline, he just needed them to survive the next twelve minutes.
But the Premier League doesn't hand out lifelines.
Just as the game seemed to settle into a lull, Winks picked his head up and threaded a needle-sharp through-ball straight into the heart of the Villa penalty area.
Harry Kane killed the ball dead with a velvet touch, completely shattering Villa's defensive line.
Tyrone Mings and Björn Engels threw their bodies into the firing line, but Kane didn't give them a prayer.
He swiveled and unleashed a thunderous, unstoppable strike.
Heaton launched himself across the goal, but the ball tore past his right side and hammered into the back of the net!
3-1.
"HARRRRRRRRRY KANE!" Drury's voice hit a crescendo. "It's three! Clinical, ruthless, and absolutely devastating from the England captain! Aston Villa's defense is carved open once again, and Spurs are running riot in North London!"
The noise inside the stadium was deafening as forty thousand fans chanted Kane's name.
Tottenham had a stranglehold on the match, and the home crowd knew the three points were already in the bag.
The Villa players looked shell-shocked.
On social media, the frustration boiled over.
"Is our defense made of wet paper? What the fuck was that?"
"They are giving Kane miles of space in the box."
"Amateur hour. I'm turning this shit off."
"We are going straight back down to the Championship."
Following the restart, Spurs swaggered back into their formation.
Up 3-1 before the break, a toxic level of complacency began to creep into their ranks.
They played with a casual arrogance, assuming the match was already dead and buried.
The clock ticked into the forty-third minute.
And in that brief window of Tottenham arrogance, Villa finally found a crack in the armor.
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