Villa Don’t Need 11 Men To Hammer Hodgson – Match Stats

Hopefuilly you all had a decent Christmas Day but Boxing Day was far more important on a football front as Aston Villa welcomed Crystal Palace to Villa Park as we went in search of another three points.

It was a lively start, a solid save from Emi Martinez stopped Wilfried Zaha opening the scoring and when we went down the other end, Ollie Watkins saw his effort well saved but Bertrand Traore was on the spot to knock in the rebound with only five minutes played.

It was all us and at the half time break we should’ve been five or six clear and it wouldn’t have been harsh in any way. Palace’s only real challenge was the pathetic penalty call on Matty Cash that VAR actually got right for a change.

But as the game was going our way something had to happen and a moment of utter nonsense from Tyrone Mings saw him pick up a quick second yellow card and he was off for an early bath.

So what did the final 45 have in store?

We again started brightly and despite being slightly more defensive minded with less frequent support from the full backs, it was largely all us again on a threat front. Palace had plenty of the ball but weren’t really doing anything of note with it.

We could’ve extended our lead and had a penalty ourselves, but as Ollie Watkins was woodwork away from scoring, Kortney Hause followed up and 2-0 it was.

We were on top, still looked the better side despite ten men and our game management was a step up as well.

With 14 left on the clock and a very unfortunate Ollie Watkins not yet getting himself on the scoresheet, he decided to grab himself an assist when Anwar El Ghazi hit a belter to make it 3-0.

Ollie again, two guilt-edge chances to score but he adds to the rebound off the bar by hitting the post after a gorgeous pass from Jack. It’s just not falling for him, but it will and when it clicks we could be looking at a potential Golden Boot winner given his play and workrate.

3-0, job done, could’ve been a hell of a lot more and one of the best performances I can remember seeing in a long time.

No Man of the Match today….take a bow everyone who stayed on the pitch.

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