It was so nearly a vital three points for Alex McLeish away from home thanks to goals from Stiliyan Petrov and what should have been a late winner from Richard Dunne to cancel out Conor Wickham’s first half leveller.
Unfortunately, the familiar sight of a late goal coming from a set piece returned when 5’7″ Stéphane Sessègnon helped himself to a free header with one minute of normal time left on the clock.
How typical.
Stiliyan Petrov opened the scoring with another screamer
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Darren Bent’s first return to Wearside since his switch to Aston Villa has dominated the headlines, but Steve Bruce will be more concerned with trying to find what would only be his third home win of 2011.
Alex McLeish is coming off the back of two losses; one far from unexpected, the other extremely disappointing. He’s a man that can’t really afford a third straight loss.
After his wrongful dismissal was rightfully rescinded, Chris Herd keeps his place in the starting line-up.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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Aston Villa have eased back into third place in the Premiership after beating Sunderland 2-0 at The Stadium of Light tonight.
It was a slightly scrappy affair at times, but Villa put in no more effort than they needed to and always looked like there was another gear or two available if required. It wasn’t, but they couldn’t hide the chinks of quality shining through.
Heskey opened the scoring in the 27th minute after Petrov worked some space for James Milner
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Wow!! It took a penalty shoot out to settle this one, but Aston Villa will be in the next round of the Carling Cup after beating Sunderland 3 -1 from the spot. Brad Guzan has emerged as an absolute super hero after not only saving 3 penalties during the shoot out, but also one in the 85th minute and also made a number of crucial saves during the game! An unbelievable performance!!
In case you weren’t aware, the
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