My personal feeling about this game is that MON gambled. He rolled the dice on Richard Dunne and James Milner’s fitness and neither looked like they should have started this game. Richard Dunne was caught off guard on a number of occasions and it was clear he was off the pace. James Milner struggled to make any impact in this game and it was little surprise that he left the pitch in the 77th minute. I was frankly pretty surprised that Dunne did make it to the end.

Even I have to admit that it’s extremely odd that in a week in which issues have come to a head with sections of the fanbase and a month with so many games, so many important games, that there was just one change from the last game; Moustapha Salifou took Ciaran Clark’s seat in the dugout. It was good to see Salifou back in the squad, I think that’s the second time this year, but first in the Premiership.

That said, we played extremely well and but for some exceptional goal keeping from Craig Gordon, we’d have killed this game off inside the first 10 minutes. I’m not overstating that, we really could have gone 3-0 before the clock had registered double digits. But we didn’t.

The Goals

I don’t normally show you this, but both are worth looking at. Firstly, Sunderland’s goal. Kieran Richardson’s pass and Fraizer Campbell’s run were perfection, we probably shouldn’t be surprised that Dunne and Collins were left for dead, but that’s exactly what happened.

I also wanted to show you the build up to Carew’s equaliser because of Nathan Delfouneso’s involvement. I think this was pretty much only his second meaningful involvement in the game after absolutely skinning Alan Hutton up the left wing just moments before. I was literally just updating Twitter with superlatives about his movement to make himself available and the pass to pick out James Milner (in comparison to Heskey’s usual contribution) when Ashley Young whipped in one of the most perfect crosses you’ll ever see. John Carew still had to get himself on the end of it and steer it on target, but that cross deserved a goal and it got one.

The Doughnut

Early on in this game I found myself thinking about how everything we did going forward seemed to go down the wings or over the top. I know a lot of people think that’s what we always do, but if that were the case, how do you think James Milner would have won so many plaudits since he moved into the middle?

So with Milner struggling to find the pace in this game and, with him, Petrov also failing to pick up the slack, it seemed fairly clear to me that everything was going on around the outside of the pitch, leaving a hole of sorts in the middle. Like a doughnut.

In reality, there was a battle taking place in the middle between the Petrov/Milner partnership and the Richardson/Cattermole pairing and I’d say the visitors edged it. Or at least they didn’t allow our boys to run the show, hamstrung as they were by Milner’s lack of fitness. (I suppose it’s worth pondering whether a 75% fit Milner is better than a 100% Sidwell and maybe MON’s selection tells you what he thinks the answer is)

Since James Milner switched to the more central role he normally manages 30 or so passes per game, or at least in the high 20’s, and these are useful passes. In this game, it was just 14 successful passes. Stiliyan Petrov, who normally comes in a little behind Milner in the passing stakes, connected with just 17 himself in this game. Cattermole, in the Petrov role, strung 28 passes together, while Richardson, putting himself around a bit more, made only 19, although one of those was, of course, the crucial pass to pick out Fraizer Campbell on the charge.

Now, would it be disingenuous of me to point at this as the reason for failing to beat Sunderland since I’ve already said that we did enough to win this in the first 10 minutes? Well, probably, yes. However, no game is truly won in the first 10 minutes and this hole in the middle certainly didn’t help prevent Sunderland from scoring, or help us create better chances to score.

For all the criticism that is aimed at the manager for refusing to rotate the team, or, crucially, sticking with ineffectual players, I can generally understand keeping to a team that is performing and not “tinkering” with things that don’t need tinkering with. But in this case, Milner and Dunne clearly weren’t fit and it’s not as if we were without options to cover.

Milner wasn’t able to assert himself on the game in his usual manner and Dunne was caught out more than once, arguably on the goal itself. Under the circumstances, it seems almost self evident that if there was a game this month that justified the need to make a change or two to the starting line up, it was this one. Perhaps that’s just the benefit of hindsight, if we could have found that second goal, a goal that would not have been entirely undeserved, Milner & Dunne’s selection would be of little consequence right now.

Perhaps a bigger concern is whether these two players will be fit for the game against Chelsea, or, indeed, whether they’ll be played again whether they’re fit or not. We might be able to get away with two unfit key players against Sunderland at home, but it would seem unlikely that will be the case against Chelsea at the Bridge. We’ll get to that in due course though.

Returning to this game, the statistics indicate that Sunderland edged most of the key metrics, but I would suggest that’s because of the doughnut I reflected on above and we clearly threatened their goal with a lot more potency.

But, for all that, would I be far off the mark if I once again said that a draw wasn’t an unfair result?

I’ve used Nathan Delouneso in the average position map in place of Emile Heskey for obvious reasons and I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping that is the case more often. He was really very good, wasn’t he?

1	Aston Villa	Mar 24th 2010	Sunderland	1
	47%	Possession %	53%
	16	Shots	10
	4	On Target	3
	6	Corners	7
	4	Offsides	4
30′ Carew		Scorers	22′ Campbell
		Booked
		Sent Off
	188	Good Passes	224
	46%	CPS %	54%
	64	Bad Passes	70
	75%	Completion %	76%
	23	Interceptions	22
	49	Tackles Won	40
	31	Tackles Lost	40
	2	Blocks	3
	11	Free Kicks	12
Starting XI: 1. Friedel 24. Cuellar 25. Warnock 29. Collins 5. Dunne 19. Petrov 8. Milner 7. Young 6. Downing 18. Heskey 10. Carew Subs: 22. Guzan 14. Delfouneso 4. Sidwell 12. Albrighton 2. Young 23. Beye 17. Salifou
Average Position Map

[Original data and graphics courtesy of ESPN and The Guardian]