So the end result of a game against Manchester City was pretty straight forwards. Mario Balotelli scored a goal, former players got involved in putting goals past us, and we lost.
So the unbeaten run is over. Whilst I can never say I am happy with a loss, losing to Manchester City away is no great problem. Given that Manchester City will finish either first or second this year, then we will be one of many teams who will lose at the Etihad.
Don’t think for a second that I ever want to lose a match, but getting anything out of this game was always going to be a struggle, and the match played out much as logic would have predicted.
So McLeish’s unbeaten run has ended and, I would imagine, it will mean further scrutiny of his performances going forwards. I’m not overly sure that he really deserves a massive degree of scrutiny off the back of this game specifically, but fans will no doubt be wondering how Villa will perform against some of the bigger teams.
The reality though is that, at present at least, teams don’t come much more star studded than Manchester City. So whilst we can argue fairly logically that our early start to the season has been kind, now is not the time to use this game as the hallmark of what is to come. They were tougher opposition than many other teams will be, and early judgments are, by definition, premature.
So, sure, we lost our unbeaten record and, on paper at least, a 4-1 loss is never going to be something to be cherished, but at least it is out the way. The fact still remains that we weren’t absolutely hammered with an embarrassing scoreline, and it was only three points at risk – no more, no less.
I could go into the finer details of the game, but the end analysis will still be the same – we lost a match. It’s one match, and it’s not a losing streak. If it was ten matches, and we’d just played Swansea rather than City, the analysis would be different, but we didn’t, so it isn’t.
Milner Shows Some Class
As was obvious to anyone watching, the class displayed by James Milner was two-fold. On one hand, his goal was absolutely top class, taking the ball and beating Given with ease but secondly, and perhaps more indicative of the man, he did not celebrate afterwards. Such a respect for Villa given he used to play for us will surely be lauded by many Villa fans as a positive.
Of course, I’d have preferred Milner not to have scored, nor any of the other City players but, as I mentioned before, this is one game. It isn’t the end of the world.
Most would have predicted a loss for us, many would have predicted Balotelli would score given four of his nine Premier League goals have come against us, and it turned out that the game ran to form. Villa lost, City won, and that is the fixture out of the way.
I won’t use the time to act as some kind of McLeish apologist, but I will say that many managers who others perceive as better than McLeish will suffer similar or worse results than we did today. Spurs for example, lost 5-1 at home to Manchester City, and many would suggest Redknapp is a better manager than McLeish, but scorelines are what counts, and whilst ours was a loss too, it was away, and conceding less goals.
All in all, I’m sad for the loss like with any game, but we’ll bounce back. Could have done better, could have done worse. Either way, no points from the fixture was the most likely result.
The show must go on, and so it shall next week against Albion at home, where we will be looking to bounce back quickly to maintain traction in the league table.
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