An optimistic Dave Woodhall sees Villa win at West Ham.
It’s an annoying, if understandable, fact of life that whenever Villa are doing well there’s always the expectation that things will go wrong sooner rather than later. We’re never entirely confident even in the most favourable circumstances, such as when we’re on a record-breaking run and playing a team in the bottom three.
There was more cause for concern than usual on Sunday afternoon, when Villa were at a ground where we’ve never done particularly well and against a manager who seems to have a bit of a hold over us. Then came the team news, with Emiliano Martinez and Pau Torres still not recovered from their knocks. Every time Martinez is missing the conspiracy theories start up 
again but it’s probably no more than the feeling he shares with a few previous players, namely that if he doesn’t feel 100%, he won’t play.
The absence of Torres was probably a bigger blow given how well he’s been playing and that Tyrone Mings is also out, but against that we should accept that over the course of a long season the top clubs will always be resting players for certain games. And so West Ham kicked off, then a minute or so later Villa kicked off again.
Twenty-nine seconds is the quickest Premier League goal of the season so far and it came when Ezri Konsa lost possession during one of Villa’s extended attempts to pass out of defence. This tactic comes in for criticism when it goes wrong,although we’ll never know how many goals might be conceded if the ball was hoofed upfield only to return straight back.
No matter, because eight minutes later a cross was headed home well by Ollie Watkins, although it was later ruled an own goal, which seemed particularly unfair on the Villa striker. Annoyingly, this didn’t inspire Villa because it didn’t take much longer for West Ham to take the lead with a goal that had a bit of fortune attached.
Two-one down at the break; there might have been some changes to the team but they weren’t needed because five minutes after the restart Morgan Rogers showed that he was having one of his better days, and when that happens there’s no better player in his position. A curling shot in the first half had just gone over the bar, his second chance was perfectly placed.
And if that was good, his next was even better. A ball forward from Victor Lindelof, who played well throughout, and from nearly enough thirty yards Rogers got the winner. This was three points that were even more important than they might have seemed. Villa smashed into the title race in the most dramatic way possible last weekend so the pressure was on to prove that we really do being in the race. Winning without playing well for long periods and going behind twice shows that we do.
Successive Villa managers have bemoaned the feeling of cynicism, if not downright defeatism, that invariably accompanies so many good times. In part it’s understandable because it usually does go wrong, but this time feels different. This time the stars seem to have aligned to provide everything needed for success. Above all, this time we’ve got Unai.
