Villa lose at Manchester City and Dave Woodhall is hoping for instant improvement.
I thought we’d put all this behind us. The inconsistency, following up one great performance with a flat one, the timidity, treating big-name opposition as though we’re grateful to be allowed on the same pitch. The getting so far and not following up when the chance arises, not making the most of our own efforts. I really thought that we’d got to the stage where in our own minds we could beat anyone, and any team we played against would have to be at their best to live with us. And then came Tuesday evening.
Manchester City have picked up a bit over the past few weeks but they’re still not what they were and more importantly, they’re there to be beaten. Lesser teams than us have managed it, so there should have been no anxiety when the teams lined up at the Etihad. Yes, they’ve still got a lot of quality, but looking at their team, and their bench, then looking at ours, you could make a valid argument that throughout the squads, Villa’s was better. Ollie Watkins had been dropped again, John McGinn was on the bench and Tyrone Mings nowhere to be seen, but this was the big one, the time when Villa showed that on our current form we can go anywhere, play anyone, and roll them over.
And as everyone knows, it didn’t work out like that. The match got off to almost a perfect start when yet another inch-perfect pass from Youri Tielemans found Marcus Rashford, whose shot hit the post and bounced clear. Another inch and Villa would have been a goal up inside thirty seconds. Then with their first attack what seemed like a harmless City pass took an unfortunate deflection, wrong-footed the defence as well as Emiliano Martinez and fell perfectly for an unmarked attacker. A few inches difference and it would have been cleared. Them’s the breaks.
Still, Villa got on with it and ten minutes later another Rashford break led to Jacob Ramsey being brought down in the box. VAR intervened and Rashford took what might have been the worst penalty ever had the keeper guessed the right way but as it was, Villa were level and that was how the scoreline remained until half-time.
Rashford had further chances, one on either side of the break, although he was, as seems to be compulsory, brought off with fifteen minutes to go and replaced by Ollie Watkins. By then Axel Disasi had replaced Matty Cash, which was an odd substitution with Andres Garcia on the bench. This should have been the time when Villa went for the win; they certainly had both the legs and the quality to run at a side that still hasn’t recovered fully from their slump earlier in the year. Instead they stood off, seeming to be content with a draw and not over-exerting themselves for Saturday’s big day out. You can’t do that against opposition of this quality and you certainly can’t do it when you’re Aston Villa.
We were seconds away from a useful point and another morale boost in that we can get a result when not playing particularly badly. Instead the old failings were back and so might be the old doubts. If the team want to prove that fear wrong, there’s no better stage that the one coming up.
