Steven Gerrard handed selection dilemma as Aston Villa look ahead to Spurs clash

Steven Gerrard could be forced into making a huge selection call after Emi Buendia was one of the brightest players in an Aston Villa shirt against Wolverhampton Wanderers, despite only playing 16 minutes as a substitute.

Buendia, 25, was a key player in the Villa starting lineup prior to a tactical switch by Gerrard which saw Villa put together impressive performances against Brighton, Southampton and Leeds United away. Prior to this run, the Villa boss switched from a 4-3-2-1 formation to a 4-3-1-2 following several disappointing results, which saw Gerrard's men take just one point from Watford, Newcastle United and Leeds United at home.

Despite Buendia being the main casualty in this formation switch, during the poor run of results he was a main source of creativity in a fairly dismal set of performances and could have been considered unlucky to have dropped to the bench. He did make a return to the starting lineup against Arsenal however, but due to the performance as a whole being disappointing, the Argentinian failed to make any real impact in the game.

Which was a stark contrast to the role he played as a substitute in the 2-1 loss to Wolves yesterday. Buendia was brought on in place of Philippe Coutinho in the 74th minute and in just 16 minutes of action he managed to record two key passes, two shot creating actions and one big chance created.

His ability to drop in between the lines ahead of the midfield and thread passes to the likes of Ollie Watkins or link up with the players ahead of him in the final third gave Villa an attacking boost that for the majority of the game, they lacked.

His most notable involvement came from an inch perfect pass to Watkins which dissected the Wolves defence and set Watkins