My Villa Report - one of these days I shall see us beat them....

I have a truly dismal record against them, much like the club. If my historical record is right, and I think it is, we have played them eight times at home. Won 0, drawn 2, lost 6. The overall record is P15, W2, D4, L9 with a goals deficit of 9-30. I've never been to Villa Park but I saw us get thrashed 4-0 at home in the early seventies, 3-0 in the Premier League and then 3-0 yesterday. I think I saw us lose 2-0 in a League Cup game as well in the "Tony Daley express" days, so I am yet to see us score. Good reason to stay home and watch it on Sky then?

To be honest I wanted to go just for the occasion yesterday. The returning heroes, the planned tribute to Mr Cryne, the chance to see CH again and, of course, to see this exciting team that I saw demolish Derby on Tuesday. I should have known I was in for a disappointment. The parade of the old boys was good, to a point - there were plenty of faces missing that I wished had been there (lack of time I suppose, plus unavailability?). The way we took the game to them in the early stages, as best we could and the wonderful light show in the 65th minute, including plenty in the Villa end, were the highlights. But, in truth, we fell a long way short.

I'm not going to criticise any of our players. They are mostly young and, in comparison to some of the opposition, inexperienced at this level. Villa may well have been struggling for the last year or two but it's clear that they have better players than us and a hell of a lot more resources to back them up. That's not to say they were that much better than us on the field, because they weren't. It's just that you knew that a goal or two would finish us off, and that is what happened. That first one was a disastrous mistake by our defence and keeper and the last thing we needed was to be giving them free gifts like that. I couldn't believe the penalty decision at first, but I quickly looked at it on Sky (on my phone) and it looked clear enough. He shouldn't have dived in but it looked like a foul to me. The third was simply a good cross and a good downward header from an unchallenged big man up front. Job done.

We tried all the way through but there was far too much sideways and backwards passing - all touches that added up to our better "possession stats" but did nothing to hurt the opposition. I was surprised to hear Joe Williams being announced as MoM because all I saw from him was sweeping up and sideways passing. Obviously it's impossible to watch every player for 90 plus minutes but I saw nothing to excite me about him yesterday. Up front we were toothless, even when Thiam came on. At the back we were nervous and not strong enough with our clearances. The ball just kept coming back.

There were one or two good performances - McCarthy and Hammill I suppose - but it was, overall, a game to forget. I didn't see what Moncur and Barnes could provide yesterday because they seemed to be playing in the space of one player, if that makes sense. Either or both needed to go off, and they both did at half time. Hedges and Ugbo didn't improve things much though. Ike should have scored late on but let's excuse his inexperience for that. As usual Hammill got kicked and pulled around for most of the match so it is not surprising that he picked up a yellow card. He was a bit lucky though - it could have been red.

It's one to forget, so best we just do that and concentrate on the rest of the fixtures to come. I've come to the conclusion that I will probably never see us beat Villa, at all! As others have said there will be more days like this but, equally, we will give one or two of the rich clubs a bloody nose as well. I can see nothing more than a mid to lower-mid table finish this year. Unless, of course, something dramatic happens in January with our new investors. Maybe a reverse of last year's exodus?

 

Oh, I forgot to mention that this was written without the benefit of having seen any highlights replays, either on channel five or online. I usually have a look in case there are things that I have forgotten but this time I've seen nothing. So, apologies if I have missed something worth mentioning!

 

Williams shaded MoM for me in front of Hammill, Plenty of sideways I agree but not as much movement in front of Williams as there was on Tuesday and 2 banks of four made that difficult.

Can we do 2 hard games a week?

 

Yes, I agree there was not much on for him and he is, after all, just a young lad. Maybe Gardner would have done a better job in that role if only Villa had allowed him to play for us against them.

 

Thought McCarthy`s crossing could have been a lot better first half hit first man far too often.

 

That's a failing of several players this season though. Moncur is the worst culprit. Hammill is better but too many of his are fancy kicks that find the keeper or a defender. If only we knew someone who could flight a dead ball accurately

 

Moncur and Barnes were anonymous. Thought Williams played well, as did Hammill and to some degree Potts, who fluffed his lines but still looked our most dangerous player going forward.