What I wanted to see from Villa against City and Arsenal was what I ended up seeing. I didn’t expect wins. What I wanted was effort and confidence-building displays for the run in.
I think Villa delivered.
I’m not going to get sucked into the “If Southampton beat City, then Villa should, too.” That just seems silly. As I’ve said before: “A > B and B > C, so A > C” might be a true statement in mathematics, but sports aren’t math. Each match is its own separate event in its own context.
Villa came out and played hard from the start. For the first 30 minutes they kept City from finding any rhythm and had one glorious chance from Christian Benteke that found Carlos Tevez’s foot on the goal line. They looked for all the world like going in level and scoreless at halftime, which, after a 5-0 tonking, would’ve been more than adequate. And it wouldn’t have been undeserved.
Villa pressed, fought, pressed and showed great energy. They weren’t cowed. They weren’t timid. They didn’t show City too much respect.
Ciaran Clark simply made a very avoidable error. I saw multiple replays, and couldn’t see a foul. The BBC write-up says replays showed he was fouled. Regardless, he simply should’ve cleared the ball instead of getting too clever for himself. But he didn’t, and Dzeko and Tevez made Villa pay.
Both Andreas Weimann (who narrowly missed connecting on a great cross) and Gabriel Agbonlahor (who had a fierce header snuffed out by Kolo Toure at the near post) had chances. And Benteke could easily have had a penalty. I prefer no-calls to dodgy calls, but I’ve seen them given for less, and Benteke was clearly knocked down and no contact with the ball was made.
Likewise I was unimpressed with the foul given against Gabby when he turned the defender to get in with a look on goal.
But rather than lament a couple near misses, I’d rather focus on the effort. Which, when there’s not such a gulf in class, ought to be better rewarded in upcoming games if Villa can keep bringing it.
Indeed, instead of being cowed and cautious, Villa tried to move with speed, and did so well enough. There was crisp passing, and more important, it was happening more quickly than we’ve become accustomed to. There was some degree of composure.
The fullbacks got up and provided width, and Villa showed a willingness to move the ball around and try to find openings. They got the ball out wide when the overlaps were offered. They got some decent crosses in. They fought to regain possession when they lost it, and they generally kept a good shape when City moved forward, getting back quickly and covering the obvious lanes.
Naturally city had some good moves. And naturally Brad Guzan had to be at his best to turn away a couple efforts, particularly two outstanding saves where he got enough of the ball to put in on the post instead of the back of the net. It was probably a bad bit of luck that saw Rodwell leave to be replaced by Dzeko who was more effective and caused more problems.
When you’re playing a side with that much talent who’ve had an embarrassing outing to motivate them, you can expect them to show their quality. But Villa did more than enough to keep themselves from being overwhelmed the way they have at other times this season.
And more than enough to leave themselves in with a shout of a point all the way to the final whistle.
What made things difficult up front was Kolo Toure at the back, who had Benteke in his pocket most of the night, a big strong player who knew what Benteke wanted to do, and simply kept him from doing it. Too often Villa’s final ball was a predictable attempt to find the talismanic striker, and City were ready for it, and unfortunately they had the stature at the back to do something about it and keep the big man quiet. Even without Kompany, they looked very solid at the back. Not that Villa offer the toughest challenge they’ll face.
Now, I have no idea which Villa team will show up in the crucial fixtures against Reading and QPR. Were Villa at ease and playing better because there were no expectations? Impossible to say.
But on the face of it, I was greatly encouraged by the performance. Before the two matches I said that what I wanted to see was Villa pressing, playing hard and putting in performances that they could feel good about. A point was dropped at Arsenal, and the defending champions, who many thought would shred and embarrass Villa, were held to a goal.
All I can say is that if Villa can continue to bring that level of commitment, effort and belief, I believe they’ve got enough to stay up.
Now we just have to see whether they can do it.
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