Match Stats

Box Villa Up After Another 2nd Half Collapse – Match Stats

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It wasn’t the ideal preparation for Aston Villa’s traditional Boxing Day clash as although our game against Chelsea did survive Covid postponements, we lost head coach Steven Gerrard who had to self isolate late on and although our backline stayed intact, there were a few changes made moving up the pitch.

It was a pretty mixed and open start from us really, Chelsea had more possession as expected but with less of the ball we looked dangerous and had fashioned the extra chance. Then the breakthrough cane just ahead of the half hour mark. Matt Targett sent the ball in and it clipped off James for a credited own goal. 1-0 and game really on.

After a bit of pressure Chelsea went through and a poor tackle from Matty Cash handed them a chance from the penalty spot and Jorginho didn’t waste it. 1-1. The game went a bit flat after that but as we entered the final five minutes we seemed to find an extra gear and we had a couple of good chances (coming from good play) in succession – sadly with no goal at the end of it though.

Having created more chances, there was a big sense this game was there to be won given our overall performance – so what would we do in the second half?

Whatever that was going to be, we’d have to do it with Lukaku on the pitch as it seemed we had rattled them and they forced the half time change. And it rattled us, and with a slow start just ahead of the hour mark Lukaku caught us napping to make it 2-1.

Heads looked like they had gone and our decent passages of play were few and far between now, and Chelsea were probably unlucky not to have further increased their lead as we moved towards the final 20 minutes.

It was poor, our changes made us worse and we are just incapable of playing (and staying concentrated) for 90 minutes.

I hope everyone’s Christmas was enjoyable, as that’s just dampened Boxing Day for a lot of folks.

And it got a little bit worse as a horror tackle from Konsa (almost identical to Cash’s earlier attempt) gifted them a second penalty – 3-1 – and massive questions remain despite the improvement we’ve seen.

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Manchester United beat us to the inaugural Prem title in 1992/93, but what was the score when we travelled to Old Trafford?

Aston Villa
1 – 3
Chelsea

Villa Park

Premier League

26/12/2021 5:30 pm

Attendance: 41907

Referee: Martin Atkinson

Aston Villa Chelsea
James (og 28) Jorginho (pen 34, pen 90+3), Lukaku (56)
Martinez
 
Mendy
Cash James
Konsa
 
Chalobah 45
Mings
 
Thiago Silva 52
Targett Rudiger
Sanson 76 Alonso
 
Douglas Luiz Kante 63
J Ramsey Jorginho
Buendia 74 Mount
Ings 73 Hudson-Odoi
Watkins Pulisic

Substitutes

Steer Arrizabalaga
Traore 73 Christensen 52
Tuanzebe Kovacic 63
Trezeguet Lukaku 45
El Ghazi 76 Saul
Hause Barkley
Carney Chukwuemeka 74 Ziyech
Davis Azpilicueta
Iroegbunam Sarr

Game Statistics

8 Goal attempts 10
1 On Target 4
2 Corners 5
8 Fouls 11
3 Yellow Cards 1
0 Red Cards 0
42 % 58

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