First things first; CT scans have revealed that Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink has suffered no long-term damage following his nasty clash of heads with Richard Dunne. That’s good news indeed, it’s always a concern when someone apparently spends so long unconscious. He’ll be able to train next week and should be able to play again before the end of the season.
To the game itself. Well, we won this in the first 25 minutes and then coasted to
With Liverpool recovering from their road trip to Madrid for Thursday’s Europa League semi final tie against Atletico, Villa re-took that 6th place in the league with a slightly stuttered performance in Hull to keep the pressure on the teams around us as the end of the season looms.
Three points which are vitally important to this season of course, but it also mean that we became only the fifth team to amass 1,000 points since the Premiership was born back
The most significant statistic in this game was the sheer number of passes. You have to go back to Wigan at Villa Park in April 2007 to find the last game with more complete passes – 361. In fact, there’s only one other game with more passes since MON came to Villa; Charlton at home in September 2006. Incidentally, the Wigan game finished 1-1, the Charlton game was a 2-0 win.
Perceptions
I think I’ve said before that one
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
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
Aston Villa had to come from behind to rescue a point for the third game running at Villa Park to finish 2-2 with Everton tonight. In a game that you wouldn’t exactly call a classic, it’s a point that may prove academic in the race for 4th place since Spurs inexplicably beat Arsenal 2-1 at White Hart Lane. Who saw that coming? Not me anyway.
Both of Everton’s goals came courtesy of Tim Cahill’s head following some extremely
The scoreline flatters Chelsea, every honest Blues fan will admit it.
The positives: we were fantastic during the first 45 minutes. Defensively immaculate from front to back. Chelsea weren’t exactly at their best and unforced errors littered their play, but take nothing away from the Villa boys who all knew exactly what they had to do and carried it out to the letter.
Of course, you know a major game officiated by Howard Webb would not be without controversy.
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
Aston Villa bounced back from last weekend’s trouncing at Stamford Bridge with a functional, if not awe-inspiring, 1-0 victory over Bolton at the Reebok today. Ashley Young’s fine goal in the 11th minute turned out to be the winner and quite fitting too.
In truth, Villa looked to be keeping plenty in reserve and against a Bolton side who had little to offer besides endlessly peppering the box with lofted crosses and throw-ins, it was never necessary to do much