Villa lose at Newcastle with Dave Woodhall wondering.
Villa are notoriously poor on Boxing Day. Villa are notoriously poor at St James’s Park. Put those two factors together and an unhappy outcome was more than likely. Of course, if said were reversed we’d have been convinced our winning streak was about to end, but that’s another matter,
Anyway, Villa lined up unchanged from last Sunday’s memorable win over Manchester City, which was no great surprise. Neither, as it turned out, was what happened afterwards. Last season, despite losing 5-1 in this fixture Alex Ferguson said we’d impressed him and were a team to watch. I’ve always liked Fergie. Then again, I don’t think he’d have had too much to say if he’d witnessed this performance.
It didn’t help that Villa conceded inside two minutes. They did start to perform reasonably well after that setback and an equaliser was a distinct possibility then after 32 minutes Jhon Duran was ruled to have been guilty of stamping and got a straight red card.
I usually try to be objective in such situations but it’s difficult when the ref makes such an obvious error. At worst it was a bit clumsy and more likely it was a complete accident. As Unai Emery said later, what’s the point of VAR if not for incidents like this?
And that was the end of any hope Villa might have had of getting anything from the match. Newcastle made the most of their numerical advantage and found getting through the Villa midfield worryingly easy. Of all the annoying things that have been happening this season, the worst is that the team seem to let their heads drop at the first sign of a setback.
There’s a worrying lack of leadership on the pitch, which makes the continued absence of Tyrone Mings even more baffling. If ever there was a situation where his qualities were needed, this was it. Instead, he started on the bench and that’s where he remained throughout.
Emery did make five substitutions in an attempt to liven up the team but none of them made much impacr. Newcastle scored a second on the hour and had a couple disallowed, although there was no debate about either so there couldn’t even be an argument that the ref was equally incompetent for both teams. Eventually a mistake by Amadou Oanna, one of the few Villa players to come out of the game with any credit, allowed the home side a third in stoppage time. We couldn’t really claim that it wasn’t deserved.
It was doubly frustrating that we followed what was probably the best performance of the season in beating Manchester City with what may have been the worst here. That’s been Villa in a nutshell since the opening day – every time we turn the corner it’s into another dead end. We’re in need of defensive re-organisation and as much new blood in January as the rules allow us. Or maybe we should just spend what we like and deal with the consequences when and if they occur. Other clubs seem to get away with it.