James Collins grabbed a point for Villa with a well taken half-volley from close range to cancel out Roger Johnson’s fortuitous opener early in the 2nd half in a game that was low on quality, but high on chances, and will have done little to ease the nerves of fans of either team.
Once again it was a case of early chances wasted, Gabby practically served the opener on the plate thanks to some comedy goal keeping from Ben Foster, only
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I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we finally won a game thanks to goals from Kyle Walker, who made one of the most impressive debuts we’ve seen in claret and blue in recent memory, Marc Albrighton and Stiliyan Petrov.
The bad news is that the scoreline flatters us; it wasn’t pretty at times, and we finished the game with ten men after Ashley Young was dismissed for what was a very soft second booking,
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And the hits just keep on coming.
Honestly, outside the first 20 minutes or so, I don’t think we were too bad (although I was expecting a little more vibrancy), a bit nervy here and there, but far from being second best. Houllier named an unchanged side, they created chances, they had control of the game for the most part, but made life difficult for themselves with frustrating mistakes.
Emile Heskey was superb in the outfield, bringing exactly what we’ve missed so
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Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to put the doom and gloom of the latter part of 2010 to bed and look forward to a bright 2011. We were certainly treated to the sort of spirit and determination that abandoned our side of late as the boys fought against an inexplicably inept refereeing performance to grab a last ditch point thanks to Ciaran Clark.
Villa had fallen behind early, just as they appeared to be shedding early nerves and impose themselves
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Well there you go, another dire game, another awful result to put 2010 to bed. The anti-Houllier voices now reaching full crescendo; maybe they’ll get their wish and we can look forward to our 4th manager in a matter of months. That’s generally worked out well for clubs that have tried it in the past.
I hate to single him out, but Eric Lichaj had a shocking opening eight minutes – nothing seemed to work for him – capped with
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Villa lost to a Tottenham side reduced to 10 men for more than hour at Villa Park thanks to a brace from Rafael van der Vaart, despite Marc Albrighton’s 82nd minute goal setting up a grandstand(ish) finish.
The Dutchman took advantage of some slack defending, ghosting in from left to tap in Hutton’s centre at the near post, brilliantly created by a visionary pass from Luka Modric. He doubled his tally midway through the 2nd half to cap a Tottenham break
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An all too typical last minute goal from Paul Scharner set up an extremely nervous four added minutes, but it wasn’t enough to cancel out Stewart Downing’s first half opener or what turned out to be the winning goal from Emile Heskey 10 minutes earlier. Not a classic performance, but spirited and determined at times, it’s an important three points, something to build on and hopefully a threshold game.
Houllier made the necessary, but not straightforward decision to drop Richard
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It started badly; the first five minutes littered with silly errors, soft free kicks and comical defending at set pieces, and it went down hill from there really.
Ngog opened the scoring in the 14th minute with an unchallenged diving header to send Skrtel’s knock down in, the corner coming from a typically poor piece of play from Stephen Warnock. Warnock was done for pace by Ngog, albeit blatantly offside, two minutes later and the Frenchman made no mistake with
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An early goal from the spot and a late goal via a deflection was enough to cancel Gabby Agbonlahor’s first half leveller and send us out of the Carling Cup, triggering disgraceful scenes as City fans invaded the pitch to taunt Villa fans locked in the away section.
The fact we dominated the game is neither here nor there, derby games are a different kettle of fish and it all comes down to failing to capitalise on opportunities and inexplicably slack
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