With derby day victory behind us from the weekend’s clash with Birmingham City, Aston Villa were again on home soil as we hosted Nottingham Forest in the midweek Championship clash earlier tonight.
With spirits boosted and things starting to slowly come together now for new head coach Dean Smith, we were looking to close the gap on Forest who found themselves in the Play-Off spots and victory would mean four wins on the spin.
The start couldn’t have been much worse as Lewis Grabban scored after three minutes to remind us why we wanted to buy him over the summer and they doubled their advantage six minutes in. A Tammy Abraham brace got us back on level terms before we once again allowed them to take the lead, but the on-loan Chelsea man helped himself to a hattrick as he dispatched a penalty inside of the final ten minutes of the first half to send us into the break level.
If Smith needed any proof defence requires January attention, a man who grew up watching the club, Joe Lolley, gifted them the lead once again shortly after the restart and let’s face it, you shouldn’t be scoring three on home soil and conceding four.
Oh, the game was far from over though.
Pereira Figueiredo saw a straight red and they’d been reduced to ten men when Abraham helped himself to four with just under 20 minutes remaining and summer capture Anwar El Ghazi took his tally to two for 2018/19 with 15 remaining to give us the lead.
With less than ten on the clock, Grabban did what Grabban does and got his second of the night to tie the scores up at 5-5 and I’m not sure either set of fans could take much more.
That was how the scoring ended in an absolute classic and I guess Smith saw the best and worst of us in that one.
I’m off for a lie-down.
Villa Park
Championship
28/11/2018 8:45 pm
Attendance: 32868
Referee: Hooper
| Aston Villa | Nottingham Forest | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abraham (11, 14, pen 36, 71), El Ghazi (75) | Grabban (3, 82), Antunes Carvalho (6), Cash (22), Lolley (51) | ||||||
| Nyland | Pantilimon | ||||||
| Hutton | Darikwa | ||||||
| Tuanzebe | Dawson | ||||||
| Chester | Pereira Figueiredo | ||||||
| Taylor | Robinson | ||||||
| McGinn | 79 | Colback | |||||
| Hourihane | Yacob | ||||||
| Grealish | Lolley | ||||||
| Bolasie | 83 | Antunes Carvalho | 70 | ||||
| Abraham | Cash | 77 | |||||
| Kodjia | 66 | Grabban | 91 | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Whelan | 79 | Guedioura | |||||
| Hogan | Osborn | ||||||
| El Ghazi | 66 | Steele | |||||
| Elmohamady | 83 | Janko | |||||
| Bunn | Bastiao Dias | 77 | |||||
| Doyle-Hayes | Ansarifard | 91 | |||||
| O'Hare | Hefele | 70 | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 26 | Goal attempts | 8 |
| 11 | On Target | 5 |
| 12 | Corners | 2 |
| 9 | Fouls | 18 |
| 3 | Yellow Cards | 3 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 1 |
| 63 | % | 37 |