The midweek Championship fixture list pitted Aston Villa against spirited Rotherham United earlier this evening at the New York Stadium.
With Villa on a run of six successive victories, the aim for head coach Dean Smith was simply to see his side continue that form and if possible, make it seven on the spin to close the gap on West Bromwich Albion in the Play-Off spots.
Rotherham are in 22nd place in the table, but they are making a fight of survival and are only one point shy of safety, so this wasn’t going to be a walkover.
It was certainly a mixed start as Tammy Abraham saw his tame and poor effort from the penalty spot saved after Jack Grealish was fouled, and then in typical Andy Madley fashion, having failed to even book their player for the foul, he was quick to give Tyrone Mings a second yellow for an apparent deliberate handball.
Unfortunately for us, they took their effort from 12 yards to open the scoring, but he was still content to ignore their fouls.
Second half, we needed much better and a referee with glasses.
Two minutes in we realised he hates handballs more than he does disgusting fouls as Rotherham saw their first player carded but this time Jonathan Kodjia made it count from the penalty spot and a couple of minutes later Jack Grealish finally gave us the advantage to make it 2-1.
We couldn’t build on that despite creating numerous chances, but it was three points and a win and a good reaction at the halftime break.
New York Stadium
Championship
10/04/2019 8:45 pm
Attendance: 10558
Referee: Madley
| Rotherham United | Aston Villa | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vaulks (pen 36) | Kodjia (pen 48), Grealish (51) | ||||||
| Rodak | Steer | ||||||
| Vyner | Elmohamady | ||||||
| Ihiekwe | 77 | Tuanzebe | |||||
| Robertson | Mings | ||||||
| Mattock | Taylor | ||||||
| Ajayi | Hourihane | ||||||
| Taylor | 84 | McGinn | |||||
| Vaulks | Adomah | 37 | |||||
| Towell | 68 | Grealish | 93 | ||||
| Newell | El Ghazi | 45 | |||||
| Smith | Abraham | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Wood | Whelan | 93 | |||||
| Forde | Lansbury | ||||||
| Price | Jedinak | 37 | |||||
| Crooks | Davis | ||||||
| Vassell | 77 | Green | |||||
| Williams | 84 | Kodjia | 45 | ||||
| Wiles | 68 | Sarkic | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 19 | Goal attempts | 15 |
| 6 | On Target | 8 |
| 8 | Corners | 7 |
| 17 | Fouls | 8 |
| 3 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 1 |
| 48 | % | 52 |