Wow!! It took a penalty shoot out to settle this one, but Aston Villa will be in the next round of the Carling Cup after beating Sunderland 3 -1 from the spot. Brad Guzan has emerged as an absolute super hero after not only saving 3 penalties during the shoot out, but also one in the 85th minute and also made a number of crucial saves during the game! An unbelievable performance!!
In case you weren’t aware, the
A quick overview…
A strange game this one, perhaps the nature of the local derby crept in and affected one or two performances. In truth, there wasn’t anyone in Claret and Blue who gave a particularly good account of themselves. Although Wolves should be given some credit for shutting Villa down, the quality in the final third just wasn’t there from the visitors.
Despite not giving their best showing, since neither keeper had much to do during the course of
In a lot of ways this game reminded me of the 3-1 win at Anfield and looking at the stats it’s easy to see why. Statistically speaking, Villa took a bit of a battering, but I’m not sure how many neutral observers could reconcile the game they witnessed with the stats below. I’m struggling myself, but I’m biased and I admit it, I thought MON’s men gave an enormous performance.
Unsurprisingly, as you’ll note in the average position map,
Better late than never.
One thing that struck me early on during this game was the focus on the attack down the left channel. I’m not talking about simply looking for Ash on every pass, but both Gabby and Carew working the left side of the pitch. In fact, if anything, Ash played a lot deeper than usual. I put a screen shot of the average position map up at half time which really shows this effect.
There was
I’m deliberately late with this post as I didn’t want to make it too easy to spot this game in the formation challenge. In case you were wondering, it was (D).
You may notice that the formation shown in the average position map for this game probably more closely resembles a 4-4-1-1 with John Carew apparently in the deep striker role. As a recent commenter correctly pointed out, there will be factors that influence the average position, sometimes distorting the
Aston Villa threw away a massive opportunity to take an invaluable three points at Ewood Park today and instead came away with nothing after a penalty in the closing minutes gifted 10-man Blackburn a 2-1 victory.
Gabby again got Villa off to the best of starts in the opening minutes. The in-form striker cleverly moved from an offside position just before James Milner flicked on a long ball with his head. Gabby’s shot initially looked like it was just
Aston Villa will be in the Carling Cup fourth round draw this Saturday after beating Cardiff City 1-0 at Villa Park tonight.
The news that Reo-Coker would not be included this evening proved to be accurate with MON electing to use a 4-4-2 system – Guzan, Beye, Cuellar, Collins, Shorey, Gardner, Milner, Delph, Petrov, Agbonlahor, Carew with Friedel, Sidwell, Dunne, Clark, Albrighton, Delfouneso and Warnock on the bench.
Gabby got the home side off to the best of starts scoring on 2
2
Aston Villa
Sep 19th 2009
Portsmouth
0
48
Possession %
52
7
Shots
17
4
On Target
6
7
Corners
5
2
Offsides
2
34′ Milner (Pen), 43′ Agbonlahor
Scorers
Cuellar, Agbonlahor
Booked
Sent Off
202
Passes
240
72
Bad Passes
62
6
Interceptions
16
28
Tackles Won
40
25
Tackles Lost
24
5
Blocks
2
15
Free Kicks
19
Starting XI:
1. Friedel
24. Cuellar
25. Warnock
29. Collins
5. Dunne
19. Petrov
4. Sidwell
7. Young
8. Milner
11. Agbonlahor
10. Carew
Subs:
22. Guzan
18. Heskey
23. Beye
21. Shorey
26. Gardner
16. Delph
14. Delfouneso
Average Position Map
It probably says more about how poor Portsmouth are right now that Aston Villa playing 4-4-2 really only needed to step up a gear for 15 minutes or so in the first half to win this game.
Very little happened during the first 30 minutes with Pompey probably edging things. Villa finally showed some creative spark in the middle which culminated with Petrov making a surging run into the box on the right hand side and was fouled by Belhadj.