Dave Woodhall was at Villa Park to watch history not being made.
There were no protests before the match on Saturday. No banners that I could see and no hostile chanting apart from the almost-obligatory “You don’t know what you’re doing” which seems to inevitably follow any managerial decision failing to meet with supporter approval whatever the club involved.
Villa had been doing well up until then. With an unchanged line-up from last week and a similar style of play as at Blackburn the match developed along almost identical lines. Good in the first half, but with no goals to show for it, Villa slipped a bit after the break, although they did have their best chance of the game during this period, when Marc Albrighton’s shot hit the woodwork.
Fulham were surprisingly unadventurous for a side in such good form and chasing the outside possibility of a place in Europe. Villa, though, were unable to take advantage of the visitors’ negative approach. As ever, they showed that they can play better football without Darren Bent but there’s less chance of a goal at the end of it. And therein lies the dilemma.
Villa appeared to have run out of ideas long before the end, with Charles N’Zogbia’s replacement by Andreas Weimann the signal for a chorus of protest towards the manager. It seems strange to think that the departure of a player who has been criticised so often should be so unpopular, particularly when he was replaced by an out and out striker, but that’s the state of play at Villa Park. Barry Bannan later replaced Chris Herd and when Gary Gardner came on for the injured/knackered Stilyan Petrov in the last minute of normal time we’d had six Academy graduates playing, with another two on the bench.
The official attendance was 32,372, which meant in reality around 29,000 at the ground. Even fewer were still inside Villa Park two minutes into stoppage time, when Bannan fed Gardner, whose shot was blocked with Weimann following up to stab the ball over the line at the second attempt. It was a goal stamped Made at Bodymoor and it meant that the 80 year old ‘games without a home win’ record which had been mentioned before the match wasn’t going to be broken. It also surely meant any lingering worries about being sucked into the relegation quagmire can be forgotten. The rest of the season can be a stroll towards mid-table respectability, or mediocrity depending on your viewpoint. With some of the pressure removed we might have less negative football and even more sight of the youngsters in action. Throughout the season one of the most oft-repeated comments has been that we don’t mind if results aren’t always going our way provided the players give their all and the football is worth watching. Alex for his part has always denied that he sends his teams out with a negative mindset. We’ve got ten matches left to show that all these are, indeed, the case.
Beating Fulham won’t change anyone’s opinion of the manager, although there were another couple of bright spots during the afternoon. It was our second clean sheet in the three games since the Collins-Cuellar defensive partnership has been established. Chris Herd continues to impress in the central midfield role we probably need filling more than any other. Weimann showed the instinct of the natural goal poacher to be in the right place at the right time. And Alex McLeish did know what he was doing. Let’s hope we see more of the same.