Dave Woodhall watches Villa make hard work of beating Everton.
It’s not been the best of weeks for the Villa, with arguments still raging over Champion League prices, talk of protests before the match, the appalling sate of Villa Park against Arsenal, a few niggling injuries picked up by players on international duty and worst of all, the news of Gary Shaw’s serious accident.
As the day’s events unfolded the ground seemed vastly improved, the protests fizzled out and the England pair of Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa were both able to start. Leon Bailey was missing, although whether that was due to injury or a bit of squad rotation wasn’t known. Villa able to rest a player of such quality – how about that?
The team started brightly and Watkins had an early chance to get his first of the season but his header was cleared off the line then against the run of play Everton went ahead. Amadou Onana was knocked off the ball too easily and Emiliano Martinez unable to keep out a well-placed shot.
That might have been a bit fortunate but ten minutes later Everton’s second was a superbly worked free-kick that was timed to perfection for a header that gave Martinez no chance. I can be magnanimous about this because of what came next.
Onana’s side-rule pass found his fellow ex-Evertonian Lucas Digne and Watkins got up well to head his first of the season. Once that happened the sense of relief from most of the crowd and apprehension from one corner of Villa Park was apparent.
Ross Barkley, another former Everton player, came on at half-time and Villa were lucky when the ball was taken past Martinez but Ezri Konsa made a marvellous tackle to prevent another Everton goal. Almost immediately Youri Tielemans’ through ball was defected perfectly for Watkins. 2-2 and things were looking up.
I’d have said the ending was inevitable, but by now Jhon Duran was on the pitch and when he’s around nothing’s inevitable. Today’s episode in Tales of the Unexpected came courtesy of a screaming 25-yard shot, the spin on the ball worthy of Shane Warne at his finest. Everton hit the bar late on but that was all the excitement for one day over.
It was a harder one than anticipated but Villa’s performance had been good enough to win more easily. There’s still some problems in defence, which is hardly surprising with players still out, although it’s good to see Ross Barkley able to come in and look like the player we thought he was first time round. Meanwhile, Tielemans seems to improve with every game.
I’ve always said Villa and Everton are two similar clubs but now it seems we’re turning into the new Manchester United. The people in charge are making it clear that they’d rather have big-spending tourists than long-standing season ticket-holders and now we’re winning games after being two-nil down. To get to where we want we have to become what we hate, indeed.
And on a more serious note, while the three points were important I don’t suppose I’m the only one who would have swapped them and a lot more to have had Gary Shaw watching alongside us.