Seven Goal Thriller For Villa, But Some Will Have Concerns As Well As Positives From Cup Clash – Match Stats

Having picked up our first win last week in the Premier League clash with Everton, Aston Villa went into battle with Crewe Alexandra at Gresty Road as we looked to book our place in the next round of this year’s EFL Cup.

Given we were pitted against lower league opposition, the expectation was that head coach Dean Smith would significantly rotate the pack and give other summer signings a decent runout and that proved largely true with his starting XI.

It wasn’t great and Crewe made a battle of it, but Ezri Konsa opened the scoring four minutes in, and Conor Hourihane helped himself to a brace before we reached the half time restart. The second half was equally as mixed as we went on to score another three times, although Crewe also got themselves on the scoresheet late on to make things slightly more twitchy for the glass half empty amongst us (although given Crewe’s chances on the day and our historic ‘final ten minutes of games’ it was understandable I guess).

For a Cup game and a potential banana skin, we’ll be disappointed to have conceded so many chances, but we have to be pleased we took ours – especially with the changes to the team.

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Crewe Alexandra				Aston Villa
Wintle (84)				Konsa (4), Hourihane (24, 45+3), Davis (69), Guilbert (76), Grealish (87)
Richards				Steer
Ng				Elmohamady
Lancashire				Konsa
Nolan				Hause
Adebisi				Targett			43
Wintle				Hourihane
Ainley				Nakamba
Lowery			68	Lansbury
Dale				Jota			68
Porter			45	Davis			82
Kirk			66	El Ghazi
Substitutes
Jaaskelainen				Douglas Luiz
Powell				Grealish			68
Jones			68	Guilbert			43
Green				Nyland
Finney			66	Tshibola
Hunt				Ramsey
Anene			45	Archer			82

Game Statistics
17	Goal attempts	17
6	On Target	7
4	Corners	6
9	Fouls	10
1	Yellow Cards	1
0	Red Cards	0
33	%	67