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” from the home crowd.

That was a theme for the game actually; not just the crowd encouraging Milner and Petrov to shoot from distance whenever they enjoyed some space – which was frequently the case – but also Milner’s ability to slot such nicely weighted balls through the middle. This is something of a new weapon in our arsenal, but I’ll come back to that.

The second goal was fantastic and we have Steve Sidwell, who was warming up on the sidelines at the time, to thank for it. Ashley Young had hit a troubling pass up the right channel which forced Hull goal keeper, Matt Duke, out of his area to deal with, leaving him no option but to nod the ball out of play. What was impressive for me, was not only that Sidwell was quick thinking enough to grab the ball and pass it straight to Gabby to throw in, but that Gabby was thinking the same, as was Milner, charging into space to receive the ball.

Gabby smartly lobbed the ball into space, Milner nudged it on with his chest before deftly lobbing the ball over the helpless Duke and a couple of Hull defenders with the outside of his right boot. Make no mistake, Milner did this at pace and had a lot to do to get the ball in the net. It wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination.

The final goal came in the closing minutes when substitute John Carew absolutely knocked the skin off the ball to bury it in the net from the penalty spot. It’s certainly an effective method of taking penalties – a long run up and pure power. How can a keeper guess where it’s going to go if the striker has little clue himself? As long as they’re on target, those ones tend not to get saved.

So those were the goals, but it’s the overall performance that warrants the focus of this post. First, from the outset the movement was exceptional. All the players were creating space for themselves, making runs and, most importantly, looking to get on the ball. They had confidence in themselves and each other, which allows for more fluid football.

There were several chances to open the scoring in the first 10 minutes – Luke Young probably should have made it 1-0 inside 45 seconds with a charging run into the box courtesy of an Emile Heskey nod on. Heskey himself was threaded in delightfully by Ashley Young only to hit his shot wide and Ash also whipped in a very dangerous ball from the left that Heskey and Gabby were unlucky not to get on the end of.

Phil Brown realised that he had forgotten his headset. His assisants didn't dare tell him they were only 5 feet away.

Ash and Downing are doing exactly what we hoped, Downing starting on the left and Young on the right, the pair are able to swap wings at will. We know that Ash has a left foot on him and Downing revealed he’s pretty handy with his right. Then you have Milner following up behind them in support as a utility winger and equally comfortable on either wing himself.

As I claimed in a recent blog, if these three stay fit and develop the necessary understanding, they are going to be devastating. It looks like they’re well on their way. Ash seems invigorated. He obviously loves the freedom this sort of approach allows him, but because it’s going to take defenses some time to work out how to handle us, he’s also enjoying the space they’re allowing him. Nice to have you back Ash.

Milner in the middle is like a new signing. It’s allowed him to show his short passing game that was restricted in his previous wide role. It’s really what we have been missing in the middle. He’s still a work horse, he still gets back to defend, he still gets down the wings, but now he’s also knocking passes around in middle. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this was one of the better games I’ve seen from Petrov for a while either.

And the catalyst for all this appears to be the introduction of Stewart Downing. With this only his second full 90 minutes back since his foot injury, there’s no shame in him fading in and out of this game a little, but he made the effort to get back into the action right up to the final whistle. He really is a new signing and you can see now why MON was willing to spend the money and wait the time to get him in the side. 3 quality, fast, two-footed wingers – that Martin O’Neill is basically an evil genius, isn’t he! Apart from the evil bit.

The back four are once again worthy of singling out for praise. Is it possible that we have the best pair of full backs in the Premiership right now? They’re both fantastic going forward, they’re willing to run all match and will throw themselves in front of a truck for the cause. Between them, Richard Dunne proves to be the leader we lost in Martin Laursen and Carlos Cuellar is rightly having his name associated with a call up to the Spanish national side. You might have heard of them, they’re the world’s number one national side right now!!

A Game Of Two Halves

Something that left me bemused about the 1-1 draw against Tottenham was how Villa ran out of steam so badly in the second half. They had started strongly and then made life difficult for themselves by dropping so deep and having to chase the ball. This goes against the general pattern of play under MON’s leadership – his Villa side usually plays most of their football in the second half.

The home team took their foot off the gas and coasted through the second half of this game too. I’d like to think it was because they could. Although they allowed Hull back into the game, turning the possession in their favour and making more passes, the visitors really offered nothing to be concerned about. I’m not being unfair here, they had one shot. In fairness, it rattled the woodwork with Brad Friedel beaten all ends up, but the American stopper genuinely had nothing else to do all match. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

It may be that Hull were psychologically beaten in the first half when they lost Jimmy Bullard to a clearly distressing knee injury. It may be that they’re just bad, but it’s a slight concern that we may be setting a new pattern of going gung-ho first half and go-slow second half. There are more Tottenhams than Hulls in this league.

However, it worked. We’ve scored three, secured a clean sheet, albeit against a poor team and we’ve played a second impressive game with our new attacking midfield trio. There’s no need to look for negatives.

The Stats

A much longer Statshack than normal, but we got to the numbers eventually! I’ve said it before and it’s no secret, Villa are a fairly direct team, which is not to say that we’re a long ball team, but we often finish a game with less possession and less usage of the ball. Villa looked particularly fluid in this game, hence the excitement Ash, Milner & Downing are generating, yet Hull had more of the ball statistically.

It just goes to prove one thing; there’s only one stat that matters and that’s the scoreline. Nevertheless, here’s the numbers (note that all the role swapping up top will quickly make the average position map useless if it continues in this fashion!!):-

3	Aston Villa	Dec 4th 2009	Hull	0
	47	Possession %	53
	17	Shots	7
	4	On Target	0
	9	Corners	3
	1	Offsides	1
13′ Dunne, 29′ Milner, 88′ Carew (Pen)		Scorers
Cuellar, A Young, L Young, Petrov		Booked	Marney, Fagan, Duke
		Sent Off
	213	Good Passes	236
	62	Bad Passes	66
	16	Interceptions	15
	55	Tackles Won	44
	34	Tackles Lost	37
	3	Blocks	6
	17	Free Kicks	17
Starting XI: 1. Friedel 2. Young 25. Warnock 24. Cuellar 5. Dunne 19. Petrov 8. Milner 7. Young 6. Downing 18. Heskey 11. Agbonlahor Subs: 22. Guzan 10. Carew 4. Sidwell 20. Reo-Coker 47. Clark 23. Beye 16. Delph
Average Position Map