Villa beat Fulham 2 – 0 at Villa Park today to close out August in 8th place in the Premiership before a two week International break. As far as the league goes, I think most would have reluctantly taken 6 points from the the first 3 games, although they probably wouldn’t have predicted where the points would have come from.

Villa got off to the best of starts when a mix up at the back by Fulham led to a corner inside the first few minutes. Maybe the visitor’s confidence was knocked a little, but Villa’s day got even better when Ash whipped his corner into the near post and Pantsil nodded into his own net under pressure from Gabby.

Villa controlled the remainder of the first half without applying too much pressure to Schwarzer’s goal. The five man midfield enjoyed the majority of the possession, but were unable to reflect that advantage in the scoreline.

Villa continued patiently picking away at the stubborn Fulham defense in the second half and the persistence paid off just inside the hour mark. Gabby picked up the ball 35 or so yards out and carved himself a bit of space before thumping the ball in at the near post from the edge of the box. Great to see a goal created from open play and what a goal too!!

Fulham were forced into being a bit more adventurous, but were fully aware that the extra space would favour Villa’s pacey counter attack game if they over committed. For 12 minutes or so, Fulham looked to take some initiative in the game, but Villa never looked stretched.

MON withdrew the industrious Reo-Coker on 72 minutes in favour of John Carew, which may have caused a few eyebrows to raise. Fortunately, he wasn’t intending to use the last 18 minutes utilizing a 4-4-2. Instead, Milner was brought into the middle – as many fans have been keen to see – and Gabby switched to the right flank.

Reo-Coker might be he safer bet from a defensive perspective, but it was a good opportunity to give this system a run for future reference. Of course, experiments like this will bring the manager’s decision making into question if the lead had been squandered during the closing period of the match. Hindsight is always 20/20 for the armchair fan.

Fortunately, Villa saw out the game 2-0 with Fulham looking no more threatening in front of Brad Friedel’s goal than they had at any other time during the game. If anything, it looked more likely that Villa could extend their lead.

So that’s August done, MON would no doubt love to take this form to St Andrew’s ASAP and will probably be frustrated by the International break. For the record, that’s now 3 wins on the bounce in all competitions, so no more talk about last season’s poor form extending into this season please. It’s done now, put it to bed.

I’ll put up a full review later, probably for publication in the morning, but for now enjoy the win for as long as possible before being swallowed up by the whirlwind that is the close of the summer transfer window.