Aston Villa (h) Getting away with it
5 Changes from Wolves, if it could have been 11, you wouldn’t have ruled it out, but sadly our bloated & overpaid squad does not have that level of depth or quality.
Before I start the unpleasantness I’d like to offer a very small mitigating circumstance. Villa could not afford to lose this game & they had to get something. You’ll remember when we had to do that a few years ago & how it made you feel. It’s no excuse for a performance that lacked the necessary guile & skill to get the win or even dominate. It’s hard to play against that type of team, in some cases this could be one & only opportunity to play in the Premier League for some if their players. They were always going to battle, & it was whether we had the heart, guts & spirit to match them.
Everton were bright for the first 14 minutes. DCL with a scissors kick where it may have been easier to swing a leg & hope. But! It was an attempt on goal.
Villa had to come back into the game, they had too, & the impressive Douglas Luiz was starting to pick passes through the middle of Gomes & Davies. I don’t get the Jack Grealish hype, but there’s no doubting he’s better than we have, so the speed & ease he moved from outside to inside to join in the attack was not surprising.
The last 20 minutes of the first half was like a sparring session with 12oz gloves on, nobody getting hurt, but going through the motions that are just muscle memory. HT 0-0
There were rumours this morning that Fenerbache are interested in Bernard, there was a lot of disappointment that Gordon was dropped but Bernard is one of those players with a question mark over him. Ancelotti knows he’ll get a shift out of Gordon, he knows even at 19yrs old he can trust him. So Bernard got his opportunity, but to all intents & purposes he did himself zero favours. Any sensible offer you’d imagine will be entertained. His output has not justified the salary, that’s the gamble of a free transfer..
DCL had dropped back so deep he took the ball off Keane, I got the feeling then that we’d gotten to the point where the game management & intelligence that a Gareth Barry would start driving home was missing badly. I do think Andre Gomes is capable of this, bit he had James McCarthy to do his running, Gomes had Gana, now he had Sigurdsson & Davies. We just haven’t got the capability to run a game from the centre of the pitch, we have to keep the ball wide & that leaves gaps behind the fullbacks.
Low & behold we get punished for a foul wide left & an in swinging freekick is touched in at the near post, with Pickford diving towards his far post. It’s hard to tell his it was poor defending or just a great cross, but the VAR check for a potential hand ball was cleared and the goal stood 0-1.
Gordon & Walcott had replaced Bernard & Iwobi, Iwobi once again playing off the right, sometimes doing strong productive, sometimes just giving the ball away... frustrating, but he’s a longterm prospect. Bernard as discussed, not so much.
Villa should have doubled their lead, El Ghazi’s miss at the back post may well be the nail in Villa’s coffin. If you haven’t seen it, when people say a chance was easier to score than miss, it was one of them. The cross was inch perfect, El Ghazi got in-front of Lucas Digne & the ball managed to spin off his heel & go over the cross bar from just under it. Unbelievable miss!!
Gomes had probably his busiest game since the derby, he still is nowhere near fit & lost the ball on plenty of occasions, but the majority of his passed were going forward or diagonal, almost forcing himself to be positive. He wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination but he was twice the player he was against Spurs,.. I know!! it wasn’t difficult!
It was Gomes that whipped the all across the field left to right with about 3mins to go that found Walcott semi unmarked at the far post and he looped a header over Pepe Reina & the Villa goalscorer Konsa just missed the clearance in full & the ball crossed the line 1-1. Deserved? Undeserved? Didn’t matter, it was a welcome show of spirit & fight.
Kean & Gylfi had come on, nothing doing, but the real bonus out of a poor games was Jarrod Branthwaite who was excellent. Not once did he look out of place, & if Holgate & Mina remain sidelined, I’d be delighted to see him get the last 2 games. FT 1-1
Genuinely not much to talk about - unbeaten at home since last November...wow I left on a positive!!
Sheff Utd on Monday. UTFT💙