Villa Defy The Odds To Beat Leicester, Oliver & VAR All At Once – Match Stats

Aston Villa head coach Steven Gerrard will be looking for his starting XI to continue where they left off against Manchester City as we welcome Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City side to Villa Park for Sunday’s early evening Premier League clash.

The side was as expected with Ash Young replacing the injured Matt Targett but it was the visitors who did most of the early running. Whilst it was a slow start from us, we were lively and largely organised at the back so we weren’t really troubled.

13 Minutes in an attack broke down and neither Cash nor Nakamba could prise the ball away from Daka, and he fed Barnes in who put it in the back of the net. For a change, Ezri Konsa should’ve done a lot better there.

It was a good response though and from a set piece Emi Buendia powered in a header just minutes later (but Konsa looked to get the deftest of touches on it and he was later credited with the goal). Game on, well once the inevitable and pointless VAR check was done.

Matty Cash should’ve given us the advantage as we headed towards the half hour mark, but his tame shot was easily blocked by Schmeichel.

It was then all Leicester, mainly because we were poor and sloppy with individual errors coming to the fore again, but thankfully we hadn’t paid for it this time. There’s no denying it was a nervy end to the 45 though and some frantic defending was keeping us in it.

We did step up and have a better spell of pressure towards the end and we made it count as Jacob Ramsey snuck in and booted it into the net. Or had he, Schmeichel wasn’t in control of the ball with only one hand on it and his giant fake pretending (have the FA or PL got any balls on a retrospective punishment) he’d been kicked was enough to prove the game has gone as an idiotic Oliver ruled it out.

Jacob Ramsey making history as the first player to have a goal disallowed for the crime of kicking the ball into the net.

— Paddy Power (@paddypower) December 5, 2021

1-1 but that should fire us up for the second half as we were totally cheated again and VAR continues to show it decides the rules depending on who is playing.

We were a bit livelier from the off and a key chance fell to Ollie who should’ve squared to Emi, so the opportunity was lost. From the resulting corner, we weren’t saying the same thing as Konsa got his head on it for his brace.

Sadly for them, neither Schmeichel nor Oliver could conspire to rule that one out. So he booked Nakamba a minute later for having the temerity of being fouled.

Oliver had firmly nailed his colours to the mast as Ollie went through again just ahead of the hour mark and nestled it in the net, but he had already blown up for a non-foul on Evans – curiously VAR didn’t look at that as a clear and obvious mistake. Wonder why?

After some brilliant play from Young, it was Cash’s chance to waste another effort, but we were all over them at this stage and looking good.

In all honesty as we were about to hit the 70 minute mark, it could’ve been 4-1 with the chances spurned, but Ollie had an absolute belter of a chance to get his hattrick following a smart pass from Meatball but hit it straight at the Danish cheat. He had to bury that.

And so did Ramsey with the effort created following a great run by Buendia and another smart pass from McGinn, but he inexplicably skied it.

Leicester were an occasional threat though and Martinez had to be at his best to deny Barnes with a wonder one hander, but you couldn’t shake we should’ve been out of sight.

The less said about the Benny Hill theme attack that followed involving Douglas Luiz is probably for the better.

It was Chucky time, and after a good little run of his own, Cash continued a bad day at the office by his standards by failing to even force a save out of their keeper.

After Axel inexplicably criminally let a ball bounce in the box, McGinn fairly wiped out two players, went round Schmeichel and tapped the ball towards the net, but of course, a foul had already been given against him as Oliver had shown no improvement.

And then he let Maddison off with only a booking for what was clearly a deliberate and cynical swipe at Chucky.

Schmeichel then tried to win a penalty by going down like a wet piece of spaghetti in our box after he’d come up for a corner and I’m not sure if Leicester were still attacking at this point, or simply trying to injure players?

2-1, we saw it out, the dirty cheats head back to Leicester with their tails between their legs and the referee and VAR quietly slip out the stadium hoping nobody notices, sadly their incompetence knows no bounds and they’ve exited into a store cupboard.

Aston Villa				Leicester City
Konsa (17, 54)				Barnes (14)
Martinez				Schmeichel
Cash				Castagne
Konsa				Evans
Mings				Soyuncu
Young				Thomas
McGinn				Lookman			65
Nakamba				Dewsbury-Hall			86
Douglas Luiz			77	Maddison
Buendia			78	Ndidi
Watkins				Barnes
J Ramsey			84	Daka			78
Substitutes
Sanson			77	Vardy			65
Steer				Albrighton
Tuanzebe			84	Ward
El Ghazi				Iheanacho			86
Hause				Perez			78
Philogene-Bidace				Choudhury
Carney Chukwuemeka			78	Vestergaard
Davis				Daley-Campbell
Iroegbunam				Soumare

Game Statistics
13	Goal attempts	12
4	On Target	5
3	Corners	6
8	Fouls	25
1	Yellow Cards	1
0	Red Cards	0
40	%	60