Congrats To Stevenage As They Embarrass Amateur Villa – Match Stats

This Sunday we had a break from Premier League action and were instead hosting Stevenage at Villa Park for our FA Cup third round clash.

Manager Unai Emery made plenty of changes to the team and we were even set to see something of Morgan Sanson who was in the starting line up, so this was set to be a very interesting one for a number of reasons.

With so many changes, the game took a while before we found any kind of flow and obviously some players just didn’t look match sharp with their lack of game time, and 18 minutes in we had a scare as Stevenage cut through the defence like it wasn’t there and put the ball in the back of the net. Thankfully, their runner was marginally offside and VAR did us a favour for a change.

It was largely slow and ponderous, but things clicked in the 33rd minute and after a great lay off from Danny Ings, the lesser spotted Sanson was free in the box and he made no mistake with his finish.

Now, would we settle properly and kick on?

Sort of, but it still wasn’t great and some of the movement was schoolboy level. Leon Bailey should really have made it 2-0 with his chance though. Stevenage weren’t out of this and one of their players curled in an absolute beauty of a shot that almost embarrassed Robin Olsen – but thankfully it clipped the top of the bar.

Bailey had another great chance as the half drew to a close but his control wasn’t good enough. It felt like the second was on its way, and although we should’ve been two or three clear, the players were making very hard work of this.

So what did the second half have in store?

A much brighter start for one, and Bailey had no excuses for missing that effort within a minute of the restart – the uptick in tempo was promising though (as long as it lasted). Pressure was more sustained though and we had further chances for Augustinsson and Coutinho.

Further chances followed for Ings, Bailey and even Chambers but it just wasn’t going to go in. That was the story of the second half, wasted chances and to add insult to injury, we also lost Cash and Augustinsson as they hobbled off with knocks.

Then we remembered we are Villa, the first thing Dendoncker does wrong all game sees him lose the ball at the edge of the box following a lazy pass from Olsen, and drag their player down for a straight red card and penalty. We can debate the red card but it was a penalty every day of the week.

Two minutes left and it was now 1-1 and the players only had their own finishing to blame.

And it was soon 2-1 to Stevenage as a complacent lazy bunch of idiots became befuddled with a short corner and gave their Number 10 the freedom of Villa Park to rifle home unchallenged – and Olsen should’ve done a hell of a lot better.

Full time, out at the third round again, a largely pathetic performance and the team ultimately got what they deserved. The finishing was lazy, the play was largely pedestrian and even an improved second half was basically training ground efforts.

Well done Stevenage, you battled well and your fans will be proud – now let’s have a busy January Villa, some of these players continually show they are incapable of even the basics and if that was our strength in depth, we are in more trouble than we thought.

Aston Villa				Stevenage
Sanson (33)				Reid (pen 88), Campbell (90)
Olsen				Ashby-Hammond
Cash			71	Wildin
Chambers				Sweeney
Bednarek				Vancooten			83
Augustinsson			81	Piergianni
Sanson			67	Clark			63
Dendoncker				Taylor			68
Douglas Luiz				Reeves
Bailey				Roberts
Ings			72	Rose			63
Coutinho			66	Norris			67
Substitutes
Martinez				Chapman
Mings				Campbell			63
Buendia			66	Smith			68
Watkins			72	Bostwick			83
A Young			71	Reid			63
Digne			81	Amoo			67
J Ramsey			67
Kamara
K Young

Game Statistics
17	Goal attempts	8
3	On Target	2
3	Corners	2
5	Fouls	7
0	Yellow Cards	0
1	Red Cards	0
79	%	21