Can Thomas Frank win his first UEFA Champions League game? We look ahead to Tuesday’s clash with our Tottenham vs Villarreal prediction and preview.
Tottenham vs Villarreal: The Key Stats
Tottenham opened their UEFA Champions League campaign with a victory against Villarreal in 48.3% of pre-match simulations by the Opta supercomputer.
Villarreal have failed to win in all 14 of their attempts against English sides in this competition.
Spurs have only won two of their seven opening games of a European Cup/Champions League campaign.
Thomas Frank will hope to celebrate his first taste of Champions League football with a win when Tottenham host Villarreal in their opening European showdown.
Saturday’s 3-0 victory over West Ham made it three victories in four Premier League games for Frank, though Tuesday’s encounter will bring an entirely new challenge for the Spurs boss.
Frank’s only previous European experience as a manager came in Europa League qualifying with former club Brøndby IF. The Danish boss won just three of 10 matches in Europe (D4 L3) before moving to Brentford in 2018.
Spurs have not featured in the Champions League since the 2022-23 campaign. The Premier League side qualified for this edition after winning the Europa League last season under Ange Postecoglou, who was subsequently sacked.
Tottenham will need new heroes in attack. Departed duo Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, with 37 Champions League goals between them for Spurs, account for 42% of Tottenham’s 89 goals in this competition since 1992-93.
Richarlison could be one forward to step up. The Brazilian’s two Champions League goals for Tottenham make him the only current player in the squad to have scored more than once for the club in the competition.
Loanee Randal Kolo Muani may take on some of that attacking burden too as he prepares to feature for a fourth different team in the Champions League since the start of 2022-23. Having previously appeared for Eintracht Frankfurt, Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus, no active Champions League player has played for as many as four different teams in this period.
The French forward’s former team, Eintracht, as well as defending champions and parent club PSG, are among what Opta’s Power Rankings classed as the easiest draw of any side in the eight-game league phase for Spurs.
Starting strong may be key to progressing, though Spurs have only won their opening game of a European Cup/Champions League campaign in two of their seven attempts (D2 L3).
However, both such victories have come in the last two campaigns when they have played their opener at home. They beat Marseille 2-0 in 2022-23 and managed a 3-1 win in 2017-18 against Borussia Dortmund, who they will again host in the 2025-26 league phase.
Villarreal, who finished fifth in last season’s La Liga, have not featured in this competition since reaching the 2021-22 semi-finals, where they lost 5-2 on aggregate against Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
In doing so, they became the seventh different Spanish team to reach the last four in a European Cup/Champions League campaign, after Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, Real Sociedad, Valencia, and Deportivo de La Coruña.
Spurs will have to watch out for a familiar face, too, with Juan Foyth returning to north London in Villarreal colours. Foyth remains Tottenham’s youngest player to start a home game in this competition, having made his Champions League debut aged 19 years and 328 days against APOEL Nicosia in December 2017.
Further forward, Georges Mikautadze‘s arrival has added firepower to Marcelino’s frontline. The Georgian striker has been directly involved in seven goals in eight starts in major European competition (four goals, three assists), with all of those coming for Lyon in the Europa League last season.
Mikautadze made his debut in a 2-0 defeat to Atlético on Saturday, though fellow striker Gerard Moreno missed that La Liga clash through injury. Logan Costa, Willy Kambwala and Pau Cabanes are also sidelined.
There is no change for Spurs, who will again be without James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski, Radu Dragusin, Dominic Solanke and Yves Bissouma. New signing Xavi Simons marked his debut at West Ham with an assist on Saturday, and will expect another start here.
Tottenham vs Villarreal Head-to-Head
This will be the first meeting between these two sides in European competition, though Spurs have won just one of their last 13 such encounters against Spanish opposition (D5 L7).
That being said, Villarreal have faced English opponents on 14 separate occasions in European competition and are still waiting for their first victory (D6 L8).
In fact, Villarreal have lost their last seven fixtures against teams from England in this competition, and over half of their Champions League defeats have come against such opposition (57% – 8/14).
However, Marcelino’s side have managed to draw both opening games of a Champions League campaign against English sides. They shared goalless draws with Manchester United in both 2005-06 and 2008-09.
Tottenham vs Villarreal Prediction
The Opta supercomputer heavily favoured a home win as Tottenham claimed all three points in 50.0% of 10,000 pre-match simulations.
Villarreal’s victory chance was rated at 25.3%, while the draw was slightly less likely in 24.7% of data-led sims.
Tottenham vs Villarreal Predicted Lineups
Tottenham Hotspur: Guglielmo Vicario, Pedro Porro, Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven, Djed Spence, Rodrigo Bentancur, João Palhinha, Pape Matar Sarr, Mohammed Kudus, Brennan Johnson, Richarlison.
Head Coach: Thomas Frank
Villarreal: Luiz Júnior, Santiago Mouriño, Juan Foyth, Rafa Marín, Sergi Cardona, Tajon Buchanan, Santi Comesaña, Pape Gueye, Alberto Moleiro, Nicolas Pépé, Georges Mikautadze.
Head Coach: Marcelino
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 10,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Tuesday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.