Thursday evening meant only one thing for Aston Villa fans – our penultimate game of the 2021/22 Premier League season as we welcomed Burnley to Villa Park.
After the recent draw and defeat, everyone was hoping head coach Steven Gerrard would get back to winning ways this evening although he did shake up the starting XI, most notably giving Carney Chukwuemeka the start.
It wasn’t a great start really, but we were dominating possession and slowly the chances began to come for us and we really should’ve had the lead with a few chances we created in the first half. Burnley’s approach to the game was obvious to everyone, but the referee it seemed.
Then basically from nothing, Emi Buendia conceded a soft penalty that the referee couldn’t wait to give and the visitors had the advantage with their first shot on target. The perfect end to what had otherwise been quite a promising first half performance.
No changes at the break, so was that our good half?
Apparently not, after Buendia’s silly error at the end of the first half, he more than made up for it at the start of the second to put us back on level terms. Lovely little goal as well.
And the chances kept coming but we failed to do much with them despite continuing to largely dominate the game. Typically, when we did test their goalkeeper, Pope was up to the challenge and credit where it’s due – his stop from Bertie Traore’s header deserves applause.
As did Emi shortly after, along with Tyrone Mings with a phenomenal block.
We bossed the game, we should’ve won and Burnley will feel lucky with the point.
Burnley MotM
John McGinn
Emi Buendia
Matty Cash
Calum Chambers
Villa Park
Premier League
19/05/2022 9:00 pm
Attendance: 40468
Referee: Paul Tierney
| Aston Villa | Burnley | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buendia (48) | Barnes (pen 45) | ||||||
| Martinez | Pope | ||||||
| Cash | Roberts | ||||||
| Chambers | Collins | ||||||
| Mings | Tarkowski | ||||||
| Digne | Long | ||||||
| Buendia | Taylor | ||||||
| Douglas Luiz | McNeil | 79 | |||||
| J Ramsey | 72 | Brownhill | |||||
| McGinn | Cork | ||||||
| Carney Chukwuemeka | 57 | Barnes | 71 | ||||
| Watkins | 78 | Cornet | 85 | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Sanson | Lowton | 85 | |||||
| Traore | 57 | Weghorst | 71 | ||||
| Young | Hennessey | ||||||
| Nakamba | Stephens | ||||||
| Ings | 78 | Lennon | 79 | ||||
| Coutinho | 72 | Bardsley | |||||
| Olsen | Thomas | ||||||
| Iroegbunam | Dodgson | ||||||
| Feeney | Costelloe | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 22 | Goal attempts | 10 |
| 9 | On Target | 5 |
| 13 | Corners | 6 |
| 11 | Fouls | 20 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 1 |
| 71 | % | 29 |
Just how that vicious elbow in Tyrone’s face didn’t warrant a card I don’t know. Thank heavens Mee wasn’t playing, we would have needed a fleet of ambulances on standby.