Maybe not a classic, but pretty entertaining, especially in the second half, and a very even affair this one. Arsenal hit the woodwork twice, but otherwise it was Aston Villa doing most of the pressing. Let’s just take a quick look at the shots either side managed to fire off:-
The blue are on target. The red are off-target and the dotted red lines indicate the two shots which hit the post and crossbar. The grey lines are
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
For some reason or another I neglected to create a Statshack for the 3-1 victory over Liverpool at Anfield, so I’ll take the rare step here of including it below the stats from last night’s 1-0 loss at Villa Park. It might be interesting to compare the two.
0
Aston Villa
Dec 29th 2009
Liverpool
1
42
Possession %
58
9
Shots
15
4
On Target
4
8
Corners
10
0
Offsides
1
Scorers
93′ Torres
Dunne
Booked
Lucas
Sent Off
214
Good Passes
325
60
Bad Passes
81
35
Interceptions
18
36
Tackles Won
37
21
Tackles Lost
29
7
Blocks
1
12
Free Kicks
13
Starting XI:
1. Friedel
2. Young
25. Warnock
24. Cuellar
5. Dunne
19. Petrov
20. Reo-Coker
8. Milner
6. Downing
10. Carew
11. Agbonlahor
Subs:
22. Guzan
14. Delfouneso
4. Sidwell
12. Albrighton
29. Collins
23. Beye
16. Delph
Average
Statistically speaking, this game closely resembles the three victories over Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd. The one major detail that differs significantly is the scoreline of course.
Villa presented little threat to Almunia’s goal in the second half, but it was certainly more a case of Arsenal eventually making their chances pay after the break and there will be little argument about who can be credited with that fact.
It’s not often that a single player comes off the bench to
An old friend of mine, a Baggies fan, emailed me to say that as much as he hated to admit it, Stoke’s disallowed goal should have stood and asked what I thought. I didn’t disagree, but goals change games so we shouldn’t assume that the rest of the game would have played out exactly the same to end in a 1-1 draw. I’m confident that we would have found the necessary goals to win the game and the
I’m bringing the average position map back for this game since Milner, Ash, Downing, Gabby & Heskey aren’t all in one big pile! I think this one is a pretty decent depiction of how the current system functions.
As far as the numbers go, well you can see for yourself. Had we not scored more goals than Sunderland and, therefore, won the game, might this be evidence of our shortcomings for any of the overly vocal detractors floating around
There’s so many positives that we can extract from this game, it’s difficult to know where to start. OK, well it’s the result, obviously. You have to go back to August 1995 for the last time we beat Man Utd in the league and back again to November 1983 for the last time it happened at Old Trafford.
Naturally the highlight from the game is Gabby’s 21st minute goal, but MON’s men were true to the gaffer’s word and
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”
I don’t do it often, but sometimes I check the average position map at half time and compare it with the version at the end of the match. Villa are frequently a second half team, I’ve never seen our team pushed back so much during a second half that the full time map reveals deeper positioning than at half time. Until this game. Rather than simply saying we were too deep in the second half, I think