Dave Woodhall sees Villa draw with Manchester United.
Villa have taken massive strides in the past couple of years – everyone in football knows that. It’s a long and perilous jorney and we’re tantalisingly close to the final destination but when we do get there the result won’t be seen in term of trophies won and great foes conquered, it will be when we play Sunday afternoon’s opponents and put together a string of routine 2-0 wins. Turn up, play, go home with the job done. Only when we’re beating them regularly with the minimum of fuss and, more than that, expecting to beat them, can we consider the Villa to be a successful club.
There’s no denying that they’re a bogey team. Others might, just possibly, have a better record against us but there isn’t any other club that we look at with such a defeatist attitude. Of course, that’s hardly surprising – after all, we’ve conjured defeat from the jaws of victory so many times and in so many different ways that a win against them is still a memorable achievement. And we’ve already had one of them this week so another was stretching it.
The line-ups were interesting, and showed the current diffeence between the two clubs. Villa had Matty Cash back, whch meant Ezri Konsa and Pau Torres could line up in the centre of the defence, with Leon Bailey a surprise starter and Amadou Onana missing. As a result, the bench has gone from arguably the strongest we’ve ever had to being bulked out with youngsters in the space of a couple of weeks. The visitors, meanwhile, recalled a veteran stopper and their team was very much of the sort that hopes to somehow grind out a result from somewhere. Some things never change though – they were able to include a captain who was sent off last week and had the red card overturned a few days ago.
Villa’s injury problems worsened early on when Konsa was forced off, although if you want to take some comfort at least it was before an international week rather than during one. And that was pretty much the only talking point of the first half. The second was marginally more interesting, with the player who should have been suspended hitting the bar before Jaden Philogene had the chance to crown a memorable week but his shot was deflected wide. Jhon Duran had come on at the usual time to the usual rapturous reception, but his low-key contribution during the final half-hour summed up the entire afternoon.
Unai Emry said that a draw was a fair result and as always it as hard to argue with him. Neither team deserved to win and neither, for differing reasons, dared to lose. In our defence, Villa had what amounted to an entire midfield, perhps our first-choice midfield at that, out injured and both team and supporters are still comparative novices at playing in Europe midweek then having to return to the league a few days later. That’s another thing we’ll have to get used to before we can say we’ve arrived.