Aston Villa came away from Fratton Park with a vitally important and well earned three points after a game against Portsmouth that will surely have had many Villa fans tearing their hair out for much of the game. Michael Brown scored a rare goal for Portsmouth to open the scoring against the run of play inside the first 10 minutes. Carew restored the status quo 7 minutes later, but it took until the 82nd minute for Villa to find the winner through Nathan Delfouneso, after bossing most of the game in between.

Villa started with the usual eleven and kicked off in confident fashion, stroking the ball around before launching several attacks down both flanks, forcing early pressure with a couple of corners. However, one lack of concentration and Portsmouth were able to show how they managed to make it to the FA Cup final despite relegation.

Stephen Warnock, who didn’t have his best game with a number of errant passes today, was left for dust by Vanden Borre making an intelligent run down Pompey’s right, although there was more than a suggestion of offside. Kanu sent him clear and Warnock initially challenged well, but Vanden Borre’s persistence and trickery allowed him to shrug the challenge off and centre the ball. Boateng stepped over the cross and allowed Michael Brown to calmly side foot his shot past Brad Friedel.

It was a nice move, a touch of good fortune about getting away with the offside and a Hollywood step over leading to a well taken shot. If that was representative of Portsmouth, they probably wouldn’t be going down. We all know it isn’t.

Villa didn’t let their heads go down and continued pressing for an equaliser. Pompey sat very deep, as you might expect, forcing Villa to stroke the ball around looking for an opening. The list of draws lately shows that chasing a game under these circumstances has frequently resulted in a stalemate.

Villa had a very strong call for a penalty turned down in the 37th minute after Gabby was clearly dragged to the ground by Vanden Borre, but Lee Probert saw nothing wrong. Curiously though, a much softer call was rewarded with a penalty when Carew was tripped trying to receive a loose ball in the box.

Unfortunately, his now customary penalty style of just blasting the ball on target was not enough to beat an in form David James who guessed the right direction and it remained 1-1. It was starting to look like it might once more be one of those days at the office for MON’s side.

It was much the same after the break; some excellent passing and movement from Villa, the midfield four were all fantastic looking to move the ball into dangerous positions. No signs of the ubiquitous “tiredness”. Unfortunately, the crossing once again left an awful lot to be desired. Perhaps they train with medicine balls at Bodymoor, but the number of over hit crosses can’t of escaped anyone’s attention.

Nevertheless, it shouldn’t go without mention that David James was the official man of the match, rightly so, and made a number of impressive saves. His recent form obviously isn’t enough to save Pompey from dropping though the trap door, but it’s encouraging for England fans ahead of the World Cup without a clear choice of number one goal keeper.

MON decided to make the vital change in the 72nd minute, withdrawing John Carew for Emile Heskey whose deeper link up play would help open the middle up as an option. 8 minutes later, Gabby was sacrificed for young Nathan Delfouneso who needed just 2 minutes before scoring his first Premiership goal.

James Milner was released with a quick free kick on the left, while the presence of Dunne and Collins in the box gave everyone the impression that the ball would just be pinged into the danger area in the usual fashion. However, Milner took it to the byline and sent in a delicate cross which was deftly nodded on by Emile Heskey to find young Delfouneso showing the poacher’s instinct of being in the right place, at the right time, side footing in at the far post on the volley. Relief is the word I think.

You could see the relief in the players, the manager, the fans, and I know I felt it.

Portsmouth looked to play a little bit for the final 8 minutes plus stoppage time and Friedel was forced to make a late instinctive save from a close range effort, but fortunately proved he was awake and we held out until the final whistle.

The win lifts us above Liverpool, 2 points clear in 6th position, which could be the final spot that will pay out a European place if Pompey’s appeal for a Europa League place are met with sympathetic ears. Liverpool will look to move back ahead with West Ham visiting Anfield tomorrow night, but we’ll finally get to play our game in hand in Hull on Wednesday. At that point, it almost becomes a straight race to the finish line.

I’ll follow up with the usual Statshack and technical analysis later. If you watched the game, you won’t be surprised to learn that we connected more passes in this game than any other this season, such was the dominance over Portsmouth. You’ll hopefully also be delighted to know that 58 points from 34 games is the best performance in the league since 1995/96.

We also reached another key milestone today, with another just around the corner. I’ll fill you in on both of those this week. For now though, let’s just soak in the three points. Deep breath….. ah, feels good!

UTV

[Pic: Fanfeeder]