Saturday Morning Sunshine
The sun is streaming in my window and optimism is flowing again here in Ladbroke Grove, ominously. So far we’ve fought off bids for Kenwyne and it would’ve been terrible if he’d gone to Spurs of all teams. Let’s hope he can show Villa what they’re missing this afternoon. I know it’s been on the cards for weeks but I think we should’ve kept Wallace, and certainly not have let him go for the buttons that were reported. He can actually dribble down the wing and put crosses in, which seems to be exactly what we need as Edwards certainly isn’t firing on all cylinders. If we get a draw this afternoon I’ll be happy and a win would be fantastic. At the game at Villa Park in September there wasn’t much in it and we were again let down by our defending at free-kicks. I hope Reid will be in from the start to create something for Cisse and Kenwyne to get on the end of. I doubt if McShane will start but he should be on the bench. Final score? 1-1.

The Match
There were two changes for us with the anticipated absence of Malbranque and also Rico still feeling the effects of last week’s injury. They were replaced by Tainio and Edwards but Reid was on the bench. More significantly perhaps was the absence from Villa’s defence of their key player Larssen and that was good news for us. I was also pleased that Carew was nowhere to be seen as he’s always a danger. As I waited for the game to start I tuned in to Preston against Burnley and praise was heaped repeatedly on Ross Wallace.

Gary Rowell and Chris Cooper on Century Radio shared my optimism as I tuned in with fifteen minutes to kick-off. We started the game brightly, forcing a corner after two minutes from which the ball hit Petrov on the arm but no penalty was given. Blackburn then went 1-0 up against Boro which was good news. Villa showed their danger on the break when Milner crossed but nobody was there to poke it home. Just after ten minutes we went ahead when an unmarked Danny Collins headed in a great Edwards free-kick and that was poetic justice for his wrongly disallowed goal in the same fixture last season. We continued to have the better of the first quarter and Villa picked up a couple of yellow-cards before we nearly went two-up from a Ferdinand header close to the half-hour mark. Sbragia had been saying this week that the rest of the team apart from the front two needed to get among the goals and they must have been listening to him. We were doing really well from set-pieces and Villa weren’t picking us up at all well. Villa started to get back into it more as half-time approached but we held out without much difficulty and were still ahead at the break without Fulop having to make a save worth the name. We had worked hard and played well as a team.

Gary Rowell said that he reckoned the second half would be “topper”, a word I hadn’t heard for years. The second half had been even enough till Villa equalized after around ten minutes with a controversial goal. Ashley Young moved quickly down the wing to cross for Milner who headed it into the net but there was a strong suspicion that he’d handled it. Collins and Nos almost immediately went off injured, though it wasn’t clear how this had happened, and were subbed by Bardsley and McShane with the latter getting a good ripple from the crowd. So we were suddenly up against it and Villa had their tails up. With nearly a quarter of an hour left Ashley Young got a straight red card for a bad foul on Whitehead and this didn’t do our cause any harm. With ten minutes left, though, the game took another twist when from another quick break Agbonlahor went down from a McShane tackle, which was possibly outside the box, and Barry made no mistake from the spot. Straight afterwards Reid came on for Diouf. We continued to press for the equalizer with even Fulop coming up for a late corner and we had another penalty claim dismissed before it ended 1-2.

This was a big disappointment as we’d played really well for much of the game but Villa, who have a reputation for riding their luck, continued to do so and we were left to rue our missed chances. Well, the sun’s long since gone down and there’s a gloom inside and outside my home but with two more winnable home games coming up in the next ten days we may well have something to smile about soon.

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