Villa draw at home to Liverpool and Dave Woodhall recognises the familiar.
There must be a more inconsistent and frustrating club on earth than the Villa. They might be playing somewhere in the Amazonian jungle, or on a dust pitch in Africa, or even on Moor Lane playing fields, but like life on a distant planet, there are enough of them out there that the law of averages say that there’s bound to be one, somewhere. It’s just hard to imagine what they’d look like.
And once you’d tried to work out that imponderable, think about this one for a moment. This match was brought forward at short notice because of fixture congestion and the only reason it could be played this week is because Villa aren’t in the play-offs for the next stage of the Champions League. They qualified outright, finishing above Real Madrid and Manchester City. Imagining that a couple of years ago would have been just as difficult as scouring the skies for signs of life wearing a two quid pair of reading glasses.
And yet here we were, ready to do battle against a team running away with the Greatest League In The World, with a matchday squad that was patched up a week ago and now has patches on the patches. Unai’s line-up seemed to be on the principle that if we were going down, at least we’d do it fighting. There’s been times when that sort of approach has led to an embarrassing defeat, but while Villa’s team didn’t have much in the way of midfield grit, there was enough attacking potential to offer a glimmer of hope as kick-off approached.
In a bright start there were chances at both ends with Marcus Rashford, on his first start, causing the ball to end up in the visitors’ net, although it was ruled out for offside. Then Andres Garcia made a dreadful error, which he’ll learn from, that led to the opening goal. Full credit to the youngster; he knew what he’d done, took full responsibility and refused to hide for the rest of his time on the pitch. Then again, it didn’t take long for Villa to equalise when a free-kick couldn’t be cleared and Youri Tielemans was on hand to hammer the ball home. If that wasn’t enough, three minutes into stoppage time Lucas Digne’s cross was perfect for Ollie Watkins to meet and give Villa the lead at half-time.
It was all too good to be true, and the luck that some clubs (well, one in particular) get more than their fair share of came into play when a deflected shot beat the best goalkeeper in the world with half an hour to go. Liverpool missed a chance of approaching Rosenthal proportions while Jacob Ramsey, who came on as one of a string of substitutions aimed at winning the match rather than settling for a point, had another goal ruled out for offside. In the end a draw was fair, and probably something we’d have settled for before the match, but it added to the frustrations felt last Saturday, when Villa failed to get a win that would have made the top five a lot closer to reach. Turning inconsistency into an artform; it’s the Villa way.
But a few more performances like this, coming against a team who, let’s not forget, have a good claim to be the best in Europe, and that gap could easily be closed.
