Villa’s draw at Bournemouth leaves Dave Woodhall philosophical.
Like the weather, Villa weren’t all that good in the last couple of weeks of January. And neither of them have improved much in February. A trip to the coast isn’t exactly high on anyone’s list of favourite things in these conditions and Bournemouth’s recent improved form made a rare Saturday afternoon outing an even less attractive proposition.
Fortunately, and bordering on the miraculously, there have been no further injuries this week and so Villa’s line-up was as settled as it could be. Tyrone Mings started, Ollie Watkins was back and there seemed to be a few options to bring off the bench.
Watkins had the ball in the net early on only to be ruled offside, but it wasn’t long afterwards that Jadon Sancho let in Morgan Rogers to give Villa the lead. That should have given them the boost thy needed after the recent setbacks but instead it was the high point of the afternoon.
Emilianio Martinez had to make a couple of good saves, although I wish he’d not push them out so often; I know he’s almost certain to save any follow-ups but it does my nerves no good at all until he manages it.
One up at half-time despite not playing too well and surely Unai could see what wasn’t right and do something about it. I’m sure he tried but whatever he did had no effect and ten minutes after the restart Lucas Digne watched as Bournemouth’s latest ‘bound to be sold for a massive profit’ new signing striker skipped past him and Tyrone Mings for the equaliser.
The disappointing Emiliano Buendia was replaced by the even more disappointing Leon Bailey and then Douglas Luiz made way for the returning Ross Barkley (a sentence that makes me wonder if the past five years have all been a dream). Neither substitution had much effect as Villa were forced to defend deeper and Martinez had his busiest game for a while. Luckily he was also at his best.
There was a VAR check for a penalty to Bournemouth but after last week’s fiasco surely to God we couldn’t have lost out again. Tammy Abraham came on for the final five minutes and should have had longer because Watkins was having one of his quieter recent games.
And so Villa’s inconsistent form continues, made worse by the teams around us starting to find form again. Then again, when you’re at the top end of the table you can’t expect to rely on others. Villa aren’t doing themselves any favours and the way in which the defence opened up for Bournemouth’s equaliser will have had Unai fuming.
But, and this can’t be stressed enough, Amadou Onana and Douglas Luiz might be many things and most Premier League clubs would love them in their team. What they’re not, though, is Boubacar Kamara and Youri Tielemans, while nobody’s even close to being John McGinn. There isn’t a team in the world that wouldn’t miss that kind of quality, so perhaps we should be grateful for the point rather than ruing the two that were dropped.
