Same Villa, Different Season – Was This What We Were Waiting For – Match Stats

Well, it’s been a long old summer with Aston Villa getting most of their business so far done very early indeed, but finally Saturday was here and we opened up the 2022/23 Premier League campaign with a trip to Dean Court to face Scott Parker’s promoted Bournemouth side.

A poor, slow and ponderous start saw us 1-0 down inside of the opening two minutes and whatever had been worked on during pre-season, well, we very much looked like we’d picked up where we left of last year – but chances were coming for head coach Steven Gerrard’s side and clearly (we hoped) that was our bad half.

Sadly, there wasn’t much to shout about in the second half either until Boubacar Kamara pinged in a long range effort, but unfortunately for us it flashed past the post. At least it gave the travelling fans something to cheer about for a minute though.

Special mention at this point for Kamara, he did impress, but I don’t think I’ll be bothering with a Man of the Match poll again this week, and I was right, more shambolic defending in the final ten minutes saw them make it 2-0 with the only serious chance (that I can remember) in the entire second half.

Despite the much talked about pre-season, we’ve simply picked up where we left off last year, and arguably, got marginally worse. The valid excuses that did exist at this time last year no longer apply.

Enjoy your weekend folks – football and Villa are back!

Bournemouth				Aston Villa
Lerma (2), Moore (80)
Travers				Martinez
A Smith				Cash
Lerma				Konsa
Mepham				Diego Carlos
Kelly				Digne
Zemura				McGinn
Pearson			72	Kamara			82
Billing				J Ramsey			45
Tavernier			86	Bailey
Moore				Ings			66
Solanke			90+5	Coutinho			82
Substitutes
L Cook			72	Mings
Christie			86	Douglas Luiz			82
Marcondes				Buendia			45
Stacey				Watkins			66
Stanislas			90+5	Chambers
Dembele				Augustinsson
Hill				Young
Anthony				Olsen
Dennis				Archer			82

Game Statistics
7	Goal attempts	15
3	On Target	2
5	Corners	5
18	Fouls	16
3	Yellow Cards	3
0	Red Cards	0
34	%	66