An extremely interesting, and in some cases surprising, opening weekend to the new 2010/11 Premiership season. From Mancini’s millionaires leaving London with a point thanks to a quite amazing performance from the young Joe Hart, through caretaker manager Kevin MacDonald overseeing a scintillating display from his temporary charges at Villa Park, to Pepe Reina gifting Arsenal a share of the spoils at Anfield with a comedy own goal.
Hart Saves The Day
The curtain opener took place at White Hart Lane,
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While it’s up, here’s the goals and some highlights from today’s fantastic game.
Goals from Downing (15′), Petrov (40′) and Milner (66′).
YouTube Video
I’ve been working on developing Statshack 2.0, but I have to confess that I left myself with more to do than I realised and despite a late night last night, it’s still not ready. Also, I’m not sure why, but the average position map data doesn’t seem to be working, so I’m using my own interpretation of the general positions the players took up for now.
System wise, it was more of a 4-4-1-1 than a 4-2-3-1, although they may
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Kevin Macdonald’s first game in charge of Aston Villa launched a new era with a thrilling 3-0 victory over an almost bewildered West Ham side with goals from Stewart Downing, Stiliyan Petrov and, of course, James Milner. New Hammers manager, Avram Grant, will head back down the M40 grateful it was only three, it really could have been six.
Villa were firing on all cylinders from the opening whistle, attacking down both flanks, winning 3 corners in the opening 2
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I inadvertently covered much of what would be worth mentioning ahead of the curtain opener the other day, but it’s worth adding that Curtis Davies and Gabby Agbonlahor join Carlos Cuellar and James Collins on the injury list.
Surprisingly though, a name that’s caught most people by surprise in the match day squad is James Milner. With the frequently promised “done deal” still not actually done, James Milner is still a Villa player and his mid-week England run out seemed
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Not the greatest of shocks, it was looking dicey 10 days ago, but it’s been confirmed that James Collins and Carlos Cueller will not be available for the season opener against West Ham on Saturday. As far as I know, Richard Dunne came through Ireland’s 1-0 loss to Argentina unscathed and there should be no issue with Ciaran Clark.
Curtis Davies and Gabby Agbonlahor are both back in training and there’s some optimism that they will be available. Ashley
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I’m sure it’s something that is, and will be, looked at back at Bodymoor, but surely the fact that goals from set pieces are apparently drying up has to be an area of concern right now. We had 16 corners in this game and won 9 free kicks inside the West Ham half which I’m pretty certain all were used to either shoot directly at goal or at least deliver the ball into the box.
Throughout the game we had
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Aston Villa’s lack of a true goal threat was highlighted in a frustrating performance against a struggling West Ham side at Villa Park today. West Ham clearly arrived knowing they had next to no chance of winning this game and will head back to London very satisfied with their point. Villa fans will be heading home wondering how their team could dominate the game without ever really threatening to break the deadlock.
Once again the other teams around us
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