Andy Munro gives a Blue-tinged verdict on Sunday’s big match.
Sometimes it’s all about small margins, and if there had been one coat of paint less on the Villa goalpost, we would have been two#nil up and probably in an unassailable position. To add insult to injury, if the referee had had both his eyes open he would have seen Tammy Abraham’s push on Morrison before the subsequent foul in retaliation. Even taking that misfortune into account, we gave a decent account of ourselves and could have still got something from the game until the last ten minutes.
In fairness, Blues lining up without Maghoma, Jota and Gary Gardener meant we had three out of four regular midfielders missing and it showed, bearing in mind our paucity of resources numerically. Although Craig Gardner had his best game for some time and young Mahoney never let the side down, the three regulars were sorely missed and 
However, Jutkiweicz and Che Adams again showed they were a real handful for any defence and let’s hope their form remains buoyant despite this reverse. Whilst the defence have now shipped a worrying ten goals in three games, the midfield cover and support could have been better.
This is something that Gary Monk will surely address but yet again we got done down our left through players not picking up tight on the opposition’s wide players – a simple observation and hopefully easy to rectify. The golden rule for any full back should be never to stand off the winger or wingback so they can have a full pelt run at you.
Anyway, hard though it is to take a defeat to our bitter rivals, I have more than a sneaking feeling that we will have a chance to avenge the Villa Park defeat next season as well as this one.