Aston Villa’s Under 23 side hosted Norwich City at Villa Park yesterday evening for our final regular season Premier League 2 Division 2 clash of 2017/18.
FT: #AVFC U23s 0-1 #NCFC U23s…
The #PL2 regular season ends in a narrow loss for our Young Lions. However, we've finished as runners-up and will now host a one-legged home Play-Off semi-final against @ReadingFC in the coming weeks. Still lots to play for!#PartOfThePride pic.twitter.com/zhYqz3wYWR
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) April 23, 2018
Having gone on an outstanding eight-game winning run across all competitions to put ourselves to within four points of the title, Friday’s defeat to Newcastle United ended our hopes of topping the table this season but we have already secured the runners-up spot.
In doing so Kevin MacDonald’s side go into a season extension and we now face fifth-placed Reading in a one-off Play-Off semi-final at Villa Park. Should we progress through to the Final that too will be held at Villa Park owing to our second-place finish.
The other semi-final will see Brighton face off against Middlesbrough.
The game against Reading will kick off at Villa Park at 7pm on Tuesday, May 1. Tickets are available at the gate and the club will be screening this tie on their YouTube channel.
As for the game itself, Aston Villa had the ball in the back of the net but Dominic Revan saw the referee rule it out. Norwich almost instantly went down the other end and Alfie Payne saw his effort deflected past Matija Sarkic to give them the 1-0 advantage and that was how the game ended.
Eyes now turn to the Premier League Cup clash against Leicester City next Friday and then Play-Off game as we look to end the season strongly.
Aston Villa:
Sarkic, Borg, Suliman, Bazeley-Graham (Walker 72), Blackett-Taylor, Lyden (C), Doyle-Hayes (Prosser 67), Revan, Mooney, Cox, Hepburn-Murphy (Odutayo 71).
Unused Subs:
Watkins, Clark.
Yellows – Mooney (70).
Norwich:
Oxborough, Wallis, Aarons (C), Payne (Scully 80), Aransibia, Mourgos, Power (Idah 66), Odusina, Phillips (Milovanovic 86), Fonkeu, Abrahams.
Unused Subs:
Hallett, Thomas.
Yellows – Odusina (28), Fonkeu (41), Wallis (59), Phillips (77).
Goals – Fonkeu (20).
Ref: Sam Allison.
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Match Stats
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Aston Villa
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Norwich City
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43
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Possession %
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57
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3
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Shots on Target
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1
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12
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Shots
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8
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72
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Touches
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78
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4
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Clearances
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0
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4
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Corners
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9
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5
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Offsides
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3
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1
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Yellow Cards
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4
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8
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Fouls Conceded
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13
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