Stats: Villa Were Pretty Awful, Yet Birmingham Still Couldn’t Win

Aston Villa welcomed local rivals Birmingham City to Villa Park for our first Championship derby clash of the 2018/19 campaign.

Villa’s form and results so far this year haven’t been great and we saw managerial changes a few weeks back, yet Birmingham had found some form in recent times and found themselves level on points with us going into the game.

You could certainly understand their confidence ahead of the tie but under head coach Dean Smith there’s a growing resilience about the side, so even though they took the lead ahead of the half-hour mark, efforts from Jonathan Kodjia and Jack Grealish game us the advantage.

Six minutes after the restart Tammy Abraham had made it 3-1 from the penalty spot, although they got on the scoresheet once again, a fabulous effort from Alan Hutton wrapped the match up at 4-2 with 15 minutes remaining on the clock.

Three wins on the spin and clearly there are more improvements to be made so we have to be happy with that.