Villa draw at home to Fulham with Dave Woodhall watching.
By my reckoning it was 48 seconds after kick-off when the crowd at Villa Park began to make their feelings about Jamie Carragher known. That was about 46 seconds longer than I thought it would be. The merits of what Carragher said and Nas Sawiris’s response will probably be forgotten about within a couple of days. With luck, this match will be as well.
Early signs were promising. Leon Goertzka was in the side replacing João Gomes but everything else was as it should be. The team looked lively and a couple of chances went begging early on. So far, so good and it was even better when after seventeen minutes a VAR review of an incident some time earlier saw Villa awarded a penalty.
It looked marginal at the best and I’ve moaned often enough about decisions being taken back from earlier so I can’t have too many complaints that John McGinn blasted the ball against the bar. Well, I could but it did seem as though justice had been served.
Thar didn’t seem to affect the team and they continued to dominate, although Fulham looked lively at times and it took a truly incredible save from Zion Suzuki to prevent Fulham from scoring when a goal look inevitable. Then six minutes before half-time Nicolas Jackson was given the ball with enough space to create a half-chance and that’s all he needs. One-nil, the missed penalty forgotten and Villa should have been in the position to step up and see the game finished with little fuss.
At least, that was the theory. Fulham ended the first half the more dangerous and they continued to look worrying after the break. Suzuki managed to make another good save but before long it was obvious that something needed to be done. Johan Manzambi was having an off-day, which is understandable given how well he’s been playing and Goretzka hadn’t done enough to stop Fulham coming through the middle. There were three subs lined up to come on when Fulham won a corner, and one of the cardinal rules of management is that you never bring on players when you’re defending a set-piece.
The goal was Suzuki’s fault, no question, but without him we’d have let in at least another two so he can be excused the error. Fulham continued to press, he made another good save and Villa were hanging on for a point. McGinn came off towards the end of what was one of his poorest games for a long while and was replaced by Alejandro Garnacho, who to his credit always looked for the ball and could have laid on an undeserved winner in the dying minutes.
But it wasn’t to be, and in the end Villa didn’t so much settle for a point as salvage one. As the old saying goes, if you don’t do enough to win then at least make sure you don’t lose, and that was the only slight consolation to be taken. Too many players had an off-day and while you can accept that after a run of a few wins, it’s frustrating that we followed up genuine progress
with this week’s disappointments. Another corner turned, another dead end.
Whether the team had Tuesday’s trip to the Nou Camp on their collective mind, even subconsciously, we don’t know and they’ll never admit but they’ll have to sharpen up if we’re going to be going there again.
