Stephen Warnock will be writing a cheque out to The FA this week for £1,500 after his 87th minute booking at the Stadium of Light, making a total of £7,500 he’s contributed to the Soho Square coffers so far this season. It’s not Warnock’s bank account I’m concerned about though, I’m sure he can take that hit – you may have already done the math yourself – yes, Warnock picked up his 5th booking of the season against Sunderland
It’s not so much a cliché as a truism: goals change games. Sometimes not scoring does too. Had Downing’s early woodwork striking effort gone in and/or had we been awarded a penalty for the challenge on Reo-Coker shortly after, it might have been a different game.
The goal we conceded, when we conceded it and in the manner it was given away clearly took some of the wind out of our sails in a much more traditional sense.
A Richard Dunne own goal (an unwelcome record 8th in the Premiership) proved the only difference between the teams at the final whistle, but Gérard Houllier will be left scratching his head wondering why the side he sent out struggled to get a foot into this game until the 2nd half.
Perhaps team selection had a lot to do with it; Stephen Ireland far from settled, Richard Dunne far from fitness, but the XI that took to the field ought to
Sunderland
22
Simon Mignolet
15
Nedum Onuoha
2
Phillip Bardsley
4
Michael Turner
19
Titus Bramble
6
Lee Cattermole
10
Jordan Henderson
8
Steed Malbranque
17
Danny Welbeck
27
Ahmed Elmohamady
11
Darren Bent
Subs
1
Craig Gordon
33
Asamoah Gyan
16
Cristian Riveros
5
John Mensah
14
Paulo Da Silva
29
Anton Ferdinand
7
Boudewijn Zenden
Aston Villa
1
Brad Friedel
5
Richard Dunne
29
James Collins
23
Habib Beye
3
Stephen Warnock
7
Ashley Young
6
Stewart Downing
9
Stephen Ireland
19
Stiliyan Petrov
20
Nigel Reo-Coker
18
Emile Heskey
Subs
4
Steve Sidwell
10
John Carew
12
Marc Albrighton
21
Ciaran Clark
22
Brad Guzan
24
Carlos Cuellar
25
Barry Bannan
It’s been a reasonably quiet week on the Villa front so I elected to make a rare foray into the realms of off-the-field antics at another club, mainly to get to the little nugget about Sir Alex not fancying Villa Park because of Deadly, but I suppose the Rooney story was the story and worthy of a mention.
Football’s resembling a cheap Mexican soap opera more and more every day. Frankly, I was never a soap opera type and it
It might seem like a strange combination to throw together in a headline, but bear with me. I should let you know from the outset that I’m not suggesting Wayne Rooney will be an Aston Villa player any time soon – much as I would love to – but it’s clear he isn’t going to be a Man Utd player for very much longer.
You’ve no doubt seen the revelations in recent days and may also be aware that Alex
It looks like plenty of air miles will be racked up by Aston Villa players and staff next year as it’s just been confirmed that we’ll be competing in the Barclays Asia Trophy in Hong Kong around the end of July 2011, presumably on top of some of the youngsters taking part in the Hong Kong Sevens during mid-May as usual.
The mini-tournament takes place every two years and is the only “official” Premier League summer tournament and clearly an opportunity
Let’s be completely honest here, Chelsea have a considerably better side than we do and we have little practical reason to expect to beat them, yet their record at Villa Park isn’t that good. Over the last five visits now they’ve won only once, lost twice and drawn twice.
We beat them 2-1 last season despite having just 32% possession and being out-passed 407 to 167, a 29% share of the completed passes. The season before, Chelsea won 1-0
Several early and late chances for Villa bookended some good opportunities for Chelsea, but I suspect both managers will be satisfied with the point after this extremely entertaining encounter at Villa Park, despite the lack of goals. The best chance of the game came with almost the last kick of the game, Nigel Reo-Coker in the unfamiliar territory of a one-on-one with Petr Cech, lifting his effort just wide.
It started off in an encouraging fashion for the home side,