Having suffered back to back defeats against Bolton Wanderers and Queens Park Rangers, Aston Villa were dealt another major blow in our automatic promotion hopes following a bore draw against Hull City on Saturday.
I think it is fair to say that Villa had the better of the opening 45 minutes. Our best chance fell to the usually reliable Albert Adomah with Robert Snodgrass setting him up nicely, but despite his great goal record this season Uncle Albert fired over the bar.
Steve Bruce’s former side did improve after the break and Villa seemed to go into their shells. There was a lack of pace and urgency which is very hard to explain.
Another largely poor performance has cost us dearly and our mojo seems to have disappeared once again. At least we kept the clean sheet and I guess we take some solace in the fact we did end the second half more strongly looking for the winner.
Speaking to the BBC Bruce acknowledged that.
“The disappointing thing was the second half, we never really got going. That’s the frustrating thing. If we are going to be brutally honest we have to have more than we did in the second half. We had all of the attacking players on the pitch but didn’t have control of the game.”
Bruce went on to restate his aims, saying that we needed six wins out of the next seven for our automatic promotion hopes to remain.
Villa stay in fourth place, but with seven games remaining we are nine points behind Cardiff City and they have a game in hand. Let’s be honest, the chances of automatic promotion is an incredibly long shot even if we got those six wins. We just need to sort out our form out for the play-off lottery to come.
With shouts for handball against Jack Grealish in the box, the day could’ve been worse so at least a point was something and brought an end to back to back losses.
Possession was 52% Hull City, 48% Aston Villa.
Hull had 9 shots (1 on target), Villa 11 (3 on target)
Hull had 4 corners, Villa 8
Onto the next one, v Reading on Tuesday night. Let’s hope they give us something to cheer again?
🎥 "We pushed hard and created some clear-cut chances, but we just couldn't get that crucial goal."
Axel Tuanzebe reflects on Saturday's frustrating goalless draw at @HullCity…#PartOfThePride #AVFC pic.twitter.com/sRH1TnZAVh
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) April 2, 2018
