Head coach Dean Smith will be looking for further New Year cheer as he continues shaping his Aston Villa side since moving to the club and the fixture list gave us a trip to Deepdale and Preston North End as we closed out 2018.
Despite more than edging the telling statistics in the game, Villa again showed where they come up short but Smith can begin to address that when the January transfer window opens as we already know he’s looking to bolster the group and improve real competition with the arrival of Lovre Kalinic.
On loan Chelsea man Tammy Abraham added another to his collection of goals this season in the 45th minute, but a credited Ahmed Elmohamady own goal just after the hour mark levelled matters up and that was where the scoring on the day ended, but if most are being honest, we can’t really begrudge Preston their point.
We end 2018 just five points shy of the Play-Off spots, so it’s still all to play for.
Deepdale
Championship
29/12/2018 4:00 pm
Attendance: 19126
Referee: Eltringham
| Preston North End | Aston Villa | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elmohamady (og 61) | Abraham (45) | ||||||
| Rudd | Nyland | ||||||
| Clarke | 85 | Elmohamady | |||||
| Storey | Bree | ||||||
| Huntington | Chester | ||||||
| Hughes | Hutton | ||||||
| Ledson | Whelan | 75 | |||||
| Gallagher | 92 | El Ghazi | |||||
| Johnson | Hourihane | ||||||
| Burke | 90 | McGinn | |||||
| Barkhuizen | Bolasie | 68 | |||||
| Nmecha | Abraham | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Fisher | 85 | Hogan | |||||
| Crowe | Davis | ||||||
| Woods | Bjarnason | 75 | |||||
| Simpson | Kodjia | ||||||
| Baxter | Bunn | ||||||
| O'Reilly | 90 | Adomah | 68 | ||||
| Walker | 92 | Revan | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 13 | Goal attempts | 15 |
| 3 | On Target | 5 |
| 6 | Corners | 5 |
| 14 | Fouls | 9 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 39 | % | 61 |