Perhaps more workman like than spectacular, but job done and it’s a good day at the office for Aston Villa. Substitute John Carew’s 61st minute goal was the ultimate difference between the teams at Villa Park, but Villa’s quality shone through and they thoroughly deserved to edge back into third place in the Premiership.
MON put out an unchanged side for the fourth game running and who can blame him since they do say that you shouldn’t change a winning
I’m bringing the average position map back for this game since Milner, Ash, Downing, Gabby & Heskey aren’t all in one big pile! I think this one is a pretty decent depiction of how the current system functions.
As far as the numbers go, well you can see for yourself. Had we not scored more goals than Sunderland and, therefore, won the game, might this be evidence of our shortcomings for any of the overly vocal detractors floating around
Aston Villa have eased back into third place in the Premiership after beating Sunderland 2-0 at The Stadium of Light tonight.
It was a slightly scrappy affair at times, but Villa put in no more effort than they needed to and always looked like there was another gear or two available if required. It wasn’t, but they couldn’t hide the chinks of quality shining through.
Heskey opened the scoring in the 27th minute after Petrov worked some space for James Milner
There’s so many positives that we can extract from this game, it’s difficult to know where to start. OK, well it’s the result, obviously. You have to go back to August 1995 for the last time we beat Man Utd in the league and back again to November 1983 for the last time it happened at Old Trafford.
Naturally the highlight from the game is Gabby’s 21st minute goal, but MON’s men were true to the gaffer’s word and
Wow!! I’m still recovering from this one folks… and I’m going to watch it again as soon as I’m finished with this, only this time I won’t be chewing my nails off!!
There’s so much to say, I hardly know where to start. Firstly, I suppose, it’s been 14 years since we’ve taken all three points from Man Utd. 14 years!! I’m tempted to point out to MON’s detractors and other McExperts among the Villa fan base that
Hopefully by now you’ve seen the three goals from this game and if so, I’m willing to bet that you enjoyed the slightly unusual nature of all of them. Richard Dunne thumped Villa into the lead with a very non-central defender like shot that ricocheted in off the underside of the cross bar from about 8 or 9 yards. Just as impressive was the pass James Milner fed the Irishman in acres of space under cries of “shoot”
Aston Villa coasted to a 3-0 victory over Hull at Villa Park this after with goals from Richard Dunne & James Milner to re-take fifth place in the Premiership.
I wasn’t able to watch this game live, so I’ll be brief, but I’ll do a more in depth review, probably with a statshack, once I see the game in full later this evening.
Richard Dunne opened the score with a shot from about 8 yards out supplied by Milner following a corner.
Aston Villa eased into their first League Cup semi-final since losing 5-4 over two legs to Bolton back in January 2004 by scoring 5 of the 6 goals in the 4 – 2 win at Fratton Park.
Portsmouth took the lead after 10 minutes when Stan Petrov’s sliced clearance from a corner flew in at the near post past the helpless Brad Guzan. Emile Heskey justified his inclusion in the starting XI by restoring the status quo 2
I don’t do it often, but sometimes I check the average position map at half time and compare it with the version at the end of the match. Villa are frequently a second half team, I’ve never seen our team pushed back so much during a second half that the full time map reveals deeper positioning than at half time. Until this game. Rather than simply saying we were too deep in the second half, I think