If a second cup competition exit in a week and a dreadful Premier League position are likely to bury Ange Postecoglou, the Ryan Mason caretaker speed-dial button triggered so that the club can enter another spell in its unhappy place of high liquidity and heavy inertia, the Australian will not be taking full blame.
The goalkeeping of Antonin Kinsky bordered on appalling but the travelling Tottenham fans who filled Villa Park’s North Stand had another culprit for the opening goal.
Without him, Villa would have been in the fifth‑round draw by the half hour, the Czech another player of promise possibly scar-tissued by playing for malfunctioning team built by a malfunctioning model.
The sight of Rashford in Villa tracksuit, hood-up shuttle-running down the sideline warming up among fellow substitutes, was a welcome development from his sad coda at Manchester United – out of sight, out of mind, a name only taken in vain during his manager’s press conferences.
They had already been undone by the aching gaps and transitional tragedies that may soon damn Postecoglou to joining that long list of predecessors that flashes up whenever the yellow ticker of doom reveals the latest Tottenham manager’s fate.
