In a day that will be remembered for a Welsh footballing story that saddened us all, the passing of Welsh manager Gary Speed, Aston Villa managed to draw 0-0 with Swansea.

The game itself was overshadowed by news of Speed’s sad passing, with official news breaking 90 minutes before kick off. Initially it was thought that the game would be called off due to the significance of both Speed’s passing in Wales, and due to the close connection to several of the players on the pitch including Swansea’s Ashley Williams, Joe Allen and Neil Taylor, and Aston Villa’s James Collins.

Despite this, the game went ahead, with Speed’s name chanted during the hastily organised minute of silence, before turning into a moment of applause.

Shay Given, a former team mate of Speed at Newcastle, broke down during the tribute, obviously distressed by the news, and found himself having to rapidly compose himself before kick-off.

It was Swansea who came out of the blocks quicker, holding possession, but unable to test Shay Given significantly.

In an era where slick passing is lauded as the way forwards, Swansea failed to make anything of their possession. For all of their efforts, the lack of penetration was quickly becoming frustrated as balls hitting Dunne & Collins were quickly lofted clear.

Frustration soon showed with tackles flying in at an increasing pace, which resulted in seven yellow cards, although the game hadn’t turned nasty.

Chances were to be few and far between. The first came to Villa and their midfielder-cum-striker Emile Heskey who had a goalbound header ricochet off a defender. From the following corner, Richard Dunne put his header over.

It was Michel Vorm who nearly provided an assist for Aston Villa with the Swansea keeper messing up a save of Agbonlahor’s shot, managing to just get enough on the ball to punch it inches over the bar.

The next attack went to Swansea, with James Collins, in a change from recent form, being Villa’s rescuer. Scott Sinclair had sprinted inside fromt he left, but saw his shot blocked by the Welsh international.

As the game went on, Swansea attacked with arguably the clearest chance to take the three points, with Leroy Lita spinning past Dunne only to fire into the body of Shay Given. Lita then managed to fire wide.

Villa had one more chance where Agbonlahor turned supplier to put a cross into Swansea’s area, only to find nobody on the end of it.

Overall, the game itself was massively overshadowed by the news of Gary Speed’s passing. Speaking personally, the news shocked me having only spoken to Gary via business networking site LinkedIn last week where all seemed fine.

We take this opportunity to offer our sincere condolences to his wife and children.

Football may be passionate and we may well have rivalries but, in life, there are deeper meanings.

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