The last 4 minutes of this game suggested to me that David Moyes didn’t bring his side to Villa Park for a draw, a result which doesn’t help either side very much. However, with his nose in front, make no mistake, Everton parked the bus in the second half of this game.
Nothing wrong with that, it’s a perfectly valid tactic, we’ve done it ourselves many a time. Actually, we tended to do it in the past against opposition
Martin O’Neill has talked about needing to win the next 6 games to have a chance of finishing in the top 4. He’s probably right. That’s clearly the intention within the camp: Carlos Cuellar most recent updates on Twitter and Facebook talked about tonight being the first of our “cup finals” to get to the top four. That’s pretty encouraging, at least for me.
I suppose the only downside with that mentality is that the instant they fail
It was close, but I was expecting Ashley Young to come out on top for the Player of the Month award for March after a string of consistent performances signalled a return to form. In the end, Milner’s man of the match performance in the only win of the month, the 2-1 victory over Wigan, made the difference.
It’s notable that this is the first month of the season that a defensive player has not appeared in the top 3
This doesn’t require a great deal of narrative, it was never going to be a classic. The statistics reflect a very even affair and, though it may be easy to claim after the event, I really don’t think that Villa did much more than was required.
Young’s 11th minute goal is worthy of mention beyond the merits of being the game’s only goal. It was a very fitting finale to a series of 6 or 7 shorts passes in
Preface
You know you’re in trouble when a blog post carries a preface! This post is hefty by blog standards, even mine, and it is statistically and graphically rich, but that’s not the reason for this quick heads up. That said, don’t start reading expecting a quick 300 word blog!
I had most of the data here at hand and this is a post that I’ve been meaning to pull together for some time. However, I’ll be perfectly straightforward and
I know I should let it go, but inspired by the rarity of the recent 7-1 scoreline, I found myself wondering what scorelines we Villa fans have been treated to most frequently. Here’s a couple of highlights among the findings:-
Our five most popular scorelines:-
Premiership to Date
Under MON
1-1
13.93%
1-1
15.04%
0-0
10.89%
0-0
11.28%
1-0
9.72%
2-1
9.77%
2-1
9.00%
2-0
8.27%
0-1
8.71%
1-0
8.27%
Maybe the increase in scoreless and 1-1 draws doesn’t surprise you, but there aren’t any losses among the top 5 under Martin O’Neill. Nice to see the 2-0 and 2-1’s ahead of
7-1. Seven – One. Wow, that’s the worst beating I’ve ever seen Aston Villa take. We conceded 5 in the Premiership just 5 times before. If you go back to the pre-Premiership days, there were a couple of games in which we conceded 6 in the last few decades, but the last time we shipped 7? October 1964, Old Trafford.
Yesterday was actually the 9th time that we’ve conceded 7 away from home in the league, we’ve never
No narrative from me this time, what can you really say to provide any kind of worthwhile analysis? It was a freak result that doesn’t reflect our part in proceedings? Don’t believe me? Compare the numbers below with the statistics from the 2-1 victory over Chelsea at Villa Park back in October.
I guess sometimes it’s a really fine line between a great victory and a humiliating drubbing.
Incidentally, apart from Luke Young in at right back in place of Carlos
My personal feeling about this game is that MON gambled. He rolled the dice on Richard Dunne and James Milner’s fitness and neither looked like they should have started this game. Richard Dunne was caught off guard on a number of occasions and it was clear he was off the pace. James Milner struggled to make any impact in this game and it was little surprise that he left the pitch in the 77th minute. I