“A Scrappy Game & We Were Sloppy” - Fair Summation From Smith

Aston Villa welcomed Midlands’ rivals Stoke City to Villa Park earlier this afternoon for our latest Championship clash.

Villa were unbeaten in the last six matches going into the second tier clash and we were looking to hopefully edge ahead of Nottingham Forest and take seventh spot as our own. Stoke were down in tenth going into the game only two points behind us and their form in the last few games has been broadly similar to our own.

It was a mixed game for Villa and a mixed performance, as we fell behind twice to the visitors, but on each occasion, we got back on level terms to take a point from the clash. Goals on the day came from Tammy Abraham and Jonathan Kodjia.

A few negatives but a number of positives but as head coach Dean Smith admitted to the BBC following the game, given the weather conditions on the day it was probably a fair point for each, even if we’d have preferred the win.

“I think it was a deserved point for both teams. I didn’t think there was an awful lot in that game today and the conditions probably levelled out the home advantage. It made it a scrappy game and we were a little sloppy. We got into really good areas in the first half but our delivery wasn’t quite there. We spoke about getting balls in behind their centre halves but we gave them heading practice really. Credit to the lads, Kodjia has come on and won the penalty and scored an equaliser at the end. I think it was a fair result. We know we’ve got goals in us but we weren’t creating too many clear cut chances. People raise their game when they play us as that’s as well as I’ve seen Stoke play.”