Villa lose to Wolves and Dave Woodhall isn’t particularly surprised.
Sometimes the planets align and sometimes they don’t. After another memorable midweek European night Villa were away, where our form this season has been diabolical. We were playing a team who for some reason have got a good record against us over the past decade and more. We played a Champions League game on Wednesday, and our record after them is as bad as we’ve been away and against Wolves. The omens weren’t good.
Then there was the team. There must have been a point to getting rid of Jhon Duran with such undue haste when he could have been in the squad today, or Diego Carlos at all, but I can’t see what it was. As a result Villa lined up with a rookie right-back fresh from the Spanish second division, our best defensive midfielder in decades playing at centre-back, another rookie in his place and an attacking midfielder/inspiration dropped back into a position where he rarely shines.
To this was added a bench lacking in both experience and game-changing ability. Regardless of where the opposition might be in the league, this was always going to be a tough game and it wasn’t made any easier when, yet again, Villa gave away an early goal. Why this continues to be a problem is as big a mystery as the club’s transfer policy this month and both have got to be sorted soon.
It wasn’t even as though the goal woke Villa up. The team were incapable of upping the tempo and Emiiano Martinez had to be at his best to prevent any further setbacks in a first half that was as bad as anything we’ve endured since August.
Four substitutions at half-time told their own story and the most worrying aspect was that one of them was Ollie Watkins going off due to injury. Worrying and utterly predictable.
At least Villa came out fighting for the second half and it wasn’t long before John McGinn squared for new signing Donyell Malen to equalise from close range, That’s what should have happened but someone decided that Morgan Rogers had interfered and the goal was disallowed,
Villa were having most of the play and were starting to look a lot sharper, although there was still little in the way of genuine chances while at the other end Martinez still had to make a couple more saves. They had the chance to equalise in stoppage time when Malen’s shot was saved and with almost the final kick Wolves got a second to round off a particularly miserable day
With all those omens against us, perhaps we should have expected nothing else. If Malen’s goal had stood then the rest of the match might have been different, although that’s not much consolation. Once again the other results showed that Villa are capable of making up the gap with the top four and once again the performance showed that they aren’t.
There are some obvious deficiencies in the squad; some are down to ill-fortune and some are self-inflicted. We’ve got 48 hours to put them right.
