Dave Woodhall watches Villa yet again fail to hold onto a lead.
Villa v Everton is the most-played fixture in English league football (narrowly edging out the runner-up, Everton v Villa. The home game was one of the three we played in 1939-40 before Hitler decided to take revenge for our refusal to perform the Nazi salute the previous year).
Over the years the two clubs have spent most of their time occupying roughly the same position as each other so it was no surprise that Saturday’s game ended in another draw. If nothing else, it at least ended Villa’s run of four straight home defeats but the end result was another frustrating afternoon.
Villa weren’t so much bad as uninspired. The first half was poor, with our best chance of a goal coming from a Stephen Warnock header which was brilliantly saved by the keeper. That the keeper was Shay Given tells you that Warnock was back to his usual poor form.
The second half was much better and Villa deservedly took the lead with Darren Bent scoring from a good through ball from Stephen Ireland. Despite being out of sorts/injured/ off form/supposedly on the verge of being sold, Bent’s record this season is still better than players who remain legends years after they left Villa Park, yet there are still some of our supporters who never seem to accept him and would sell Bent tomorrow if the right offer came along.
Of course, we were never going to hang onto the lead for long and Everton’s inevitable equaliser came fifteen minutes later via yet another defensive cock-up. After that we had the long-delayed (by about 13 years) arrival of Robbie Keane into the proceedings. He’s not totally match-fit yet, but hasn’t lost any of his awareness during his time in the States. Whether he can add much to the team over the next two months is a moot point; how he’ll fit in is another. Villa have got plenty of attacking options but Alex has yet to find the right blend. If he can get that sorted the odd defensive lapse (which seems to happen in every game) won’t be so important.
Next week’s another big match, the visit to Wolves, which West Midlands’ finest are kindly letting us play at 3pm on Saturday. The police seem to have a strange attitude towards our derbies – sometimes we can play them (well, with one exception) at normal times, while in other years we’ve been forced towards early and Sunday kick-offs. As our home form has declined, so we’ve been playing better away, while Wolves must be the most unpredictable side in the league. It could be an interesting game, or it could be an abysmal one.