Aston Villa News 24/7
The fans who stayed away from this dirge fest in droves were the lucky ones; only surprise inclusion Chris Herd and Gabby Agbonlahor provided anything worth getting excited about. The ~12k empty seats generated more talking points during the game than the “action” on it.
There’s nothing to say about the first half, it was truly awful. I’m assuming that Alex McLeish read the riot act at half time, the home side were much improved after the break and, for 20 minutes or so, it looked like the breakthrough was just a matter of time.
The ambition was there, it was just a lack of execution in the final third that let us down.
Mick McCarthy saw it too and clearly elected to settle for a point with 13 minutes left on the clock when he brought on Kevin Foley and George Elokobi in place of his two wide men; Matt Jarvis and Stephen Hunt.
It worked, the game drifted into nothingness again despite McLeish eventually responding with Barry Bannan in place of Charles N’Zogbia in the 74th minute and Marc Albrighton with five minutes left on the clock instead of Fabian Delph.
Bannan had time to get 10 touches on the ball, Albrighton just the one. Yup.
Ultimately, it’s a point against a Wolves side that have some quality about them and another clean sheet. That’s an improvement on this same fixture last season, but won’t inspire much optimism among a fanbase that’s clearly rampant with doubters.
Despite the quality of the opposition, it should be recognised that McLeish has now gone four games unbeaten and we’ve only conceded one goal in that time. There will be games like this, it’s inevitable, the only thing that really matters are the points.
Confirmation emerged during the game that an agreement has been reached with QPR for Luke Young, so he’ll be following Jonathan Hogg out the exit door before the transfer window closes. Presumably that means at least one new face should be expected in the next few days.
We now have another international break, so next game isn’t until the September 10th trip to Everton.
Aston Villa: Given, Herd, Collins, Dunne, Warnock, Petrov, Delph (Albrighton 85′), N’Zogbia (Bannan 74′), Agbonlahor, Heskey, Bent. Unused subs: Guzan, Ireland, Delfouneso, Makoun, Clark.
Wolves: Hennessy, Stearman, Henry, Fletcher (Vokes 89′), Ward, Hunt (Elokobi 67′), Johnson, Berra, Jarvis (Foley 67′), O’Hara, Doyle. Unused subs: De Vries, Kightly, Hammill, Milijas.
You might also like...
12 Comments to “Aston Villa 0 Wolves 0: Herd the Man of the Match in bore draw”
Leave a Reply
Albrighton gets 5 minutes??? Petrov fades down the stretch again. Had chances to create in the second half and just lacked any quality. Those wasted opportunities are the difference between three points or one. Mids must create more from center of the pitch. Passing lanes appear to be there for #9. Shot from 22 yards out or send a slick little ball into the box for one of the most dangerous scorers in the league??? Frustrating.
As one who chose not to attend the game today, but instead watched from the comfort of my living room, a couple of points became apparent.
Gabby, for me, was man of the match, he worked tirelessly and was one of the few bright moments in an otherwise dull draw.
NZogbia just wasn’t used the way he is supposed to be. I noticed at times he was having to go get the ball rather than have it fed in to him.
For some reason players looked tired most noticeably Petrov and Heskey who both struggled for pace and stamina.
Bent seems to being pushed wide to accommodate other players, he is by far the best goal scorer we have had for a while and should be used as such.
If we are going to go for teams then if it aint working after an hour then the change should be made. Not with 5 minutes to go, as you say 1 touch is not good enough.
As the father of a Bluenose and brother-in-law of a Bluenose, i have listened to them bleat on about McLeish and his “no plan B”, i am now seeing what they mean.
Though 2 draws and a win aren’t a bad start we may end up regretting not taking advantage when we had the chance, coz teams far better than those we have played so far could well end up ripping us a new backside.
you’re the father of a bluenose? how is that possible? shouldn’t something like that be declared on the adoption paperwork?
the plan b thing… in the limited games we’ve seen so far, including pre-season, I think mcleish has responded well and made pretty decent changes when they were required.
today he most certainly did not. perhaps he gave wolves too much respect and was afraid to go for their throat. the prospect of losing at home could have something to do with that. maybe.
By the 10th minute of the ESPN telecast, Steve MacNanaman was saying Villa’s best hope to score was to exploit the Agbonlahor-Stearman matchup. I was hoping he was wrong, but I don’t think he was. They didn’t seem to try to do that, and nothing else was too promising. I agree Agbonlahor (or Dunne) was man of the match; Herd I don’t understand.
Not very imaginative – Makoun, Delfouneso, Ireland, Albrighton, and Bannan are all assets that could potentially inject some life into this offense if given a start. Some would in fact fail, maybe they all would, but its worth changing something. The conventional wisdom was that the loss of Young and Downing would leave Bent without support; I didn’t really believe it, but in this formation with this lineup, it is looking accurate. I counted one good chance for Bent today.
Petrov is already driving me mental. When the ball needs shifting along the midfield line or an up field short pass, he sees the pass, gets in position and then time stands still….
…and he passes.
Other things – I quite liked.
“Ultimately, it’s a point against a Wolves side that have some quality about them”
Wrong Dan, imo.
They’re a very average side that are having a decent start.
It might seem arrogant (and no disrespect to Wolves intended), but we should be disposing this sort of dross on a regular basis.
MON struggled against them too, so I’m not sure what the answer is to be fair, though.
As always, footy isn’t an exact science and hence you get these anomalies.
Please do some analysis on this game though Dan.
The possession and shots don’t match up, to me.
From the (admittedly) little I saw, we were far the better team, but created nothing of any serious impact.
I hear Bent was looking to the skies quite often
i did some analysis on the league’s top 40 goalscorers from last season over the summer and steven fletcher’s name surprisingly floated into the top ten in a couple of categories.
his goals/shots ratio was 2nd only to chicharito, his goals/shots-on-target ratio was bettered only by tim cahill. he was 6th in terms of goals/game.
that’s the kind of thing i based the statement of their quality on, badger, not their position in the table after two games. with o’hara in permanently now and johnson in the back line, they shouldn’t be in anything like the peril they were last year. give them some credit.
but yes, we are still considerably better than them and you’d be right to think that we ought to have the measure of them at home. just like last season.
i haven’t had chance to trawl the stats from this one in any great detail, but i was intrigued to notice a swing in the headline numbers from half to full time in favour of wolves despite us really going at them, at least during the first 15 or 20 minutes.
i guess it comes back to the pattern we’ve seen in recent seasons where we struggle to create much when we control possession. we’re much better at being direct and all counter-attacky.
Oh and you’ve got to admit, it’s looking like big Feck is living up to his reputation already.
All those attacking players and we don’t really attack that much?
Never mind, we’ll be ok when we get a central midfield.
Cynical as always, I guess, but we aren’t exactly making the most of our easy start, are we?
I’m dreading us playing top teams.
Backs to the wall and a slaughtering or a dour no goal draw at best, imo.
But fwiw, I hope McLeish proves me wrong.
I just don’t see it, the same as I didn’t with GH
my jury’s out so far.
here’s a thought though: we created as much in this game as in this same fixture from the past two seasons, matched the best result in terms of points and kept a clean sheet by restricting wolves to the least number of chances over the three games at VP.
Bent was shoved out of position, I think.
From what I saw we played well in the 2nd half and we all know if Bent pops up in the right place more than once he will score.
just takes one chance, doesn’t it.
caught some highlights of the game somewhere yesterday; was surprised how many chances it showed us in the edit.
hi dan,watched the game from Nairobi,and i have to say i’ve lost all confidence in mcleish,did u see Man u’s central midfield yesterday?/starting anderson and cleverly is akin to starting ireland and bannan,and what do we get from our manager??Makoun is heading out, and Bannan coul;d follow.We need a manager who is brave and sadly i cant see that in ginger