Aston Villa 2-1 Leicester City

Aston Villa’s Alan Hutton completes comeback win to keep Leicester bottom

Aston Villa
Ciaran Clark 17
Alan Hutton 71

Leicester City
Leonardo Ulloa 13



It has been a long time coming – and in more ways than one. Alan Hutton’s first goal in four years and Aston Villa’s first in the Premier League in front of the Holte End since April – a remarkable statistic – settled a tempestuous Midlands derby that saw Paul Konchesky sent off and Ashley Westwood taken off on a stretcher with a potentially serious knee injury.

It was that sort of day at Villa Park as Craig Pawson showed eight yellow cards – four for each team – and one red. Villa,on the balance of play, did enough to feel that they deserved to win a spiky encounter, though it was a mystery as to why the flashpoint with Konchesky and Hutton in the 80th minute ended with the Leicester defender being dismissed and the Villa full-back receiving only a yellow card.

The touchpaper for that incident was lit when Konchesky fouled Hutton close to the touchline. Konchesky promptly walked over to Hutton while he was on the floor and made a comment that sparked a furious reaction. Hutton jumped to his feet and the two players went nose to nose. The Villa defender then pushed Konchesky in the chest. Hutton, in other words, ended up as the aggressor and it was hard to see how Konchesky’s actions merited a tougher punishment.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of that decision, Villa held on for a second win in the space of six days, elevating them to 11th in the table and lifting some of the doom and gloom that has descended on these parts. After six defeats on the spin they have now gone five games unbeaten and picked up nine points in the process – a strange season indeed.

For Leicester, the blows keep coming. It is now 10 games without a win, going back to that remarkable 5-3 triumph over Manchester United in the late September sunshine, and a winter of discontent is starting to bite. They remain anchored to the foot of the Premier League and face Manchester City next. Most frustratingly for Nigel Pearson – whose name was chanted by the travelling supporters after Leonardo Ulloa scored in the 13th minute – this was the third successive game when Leicester have taken the lead and ended up with nothing.

Defending remains their achilles heel. Liam Moore switched off on Villa’s equaliser, when Ciaran Clark got away from the centre-half to head in Westwood’s floated free-kick only four minutes after Ulloa had scored, and it was alarming to see how much time and space Hutton was afforded before volleying home the winner. On a couple of other occasions Kasper Schmeichel came to Leicester’s rescue to deny Christian Benteke.

As for the fractious nature of the game, there had been a sense just before half-time that things might boil over. The tipping point was a tackle from behind by Jamie Vardy that left Westwood in a heap and Villa anxiously awaiting the result of a scan. Vardy was booked. On another day it could have been a red card. Emotions were running high and moments later Clark took ball and man in a challenge with Ulloa. It was not a foul – Pearson said afterwards that he had no complaints with Clark’s tackle – but Ulloa picked up a knee injury and failed to reappear for the second half.

Benteke ought to have put Villa ahead early after the restart, when Kieran Richardson, Westwood’s replacement, set him free but Schmeichel was quickly off his line to deflect the ball behind. Leicester’s threat was sporadic, although they did come close to a second when David Nugent, on for Ulloa, struck a dipping volley from wide on the left that Guzan spectacularly tipped over.

Then came Hutton’s winner. Gabriel Agbonlahor broke on the left and moved the ball on to Benteke, who spotted Hutton in space on the other side of the pitch and switched play superbly. With no Leicester defender near him Hutton, frozen out this time last year, took the ball down on his chest before beating Schmeichel at his near post. Benteke and Jack Grealish both had chances to add a third before the dust-up between Konchesky and Hutton that culminated in another name going in the book and Leicester finishing with 10 men.

Man of the match Jores Okore (Aston Villa)