Aston Villa travelled up to a wet and windy Etihad Stadium for today’s Premier League clash with Manchester City, and few fans knew what to expect as although we’ve cleared our little Covid outbreak, we knew players were still affected and it would have some impact on who head coach Dean Smith could actually select.
It was a surprisingly strong line up though so it might have been mind games from Smith, however, we were without Kortney Hause and Anwar El Ghazi dropped to the bench. With Conor Hourihane not being named on the bench, his official departure for Swansea City was announced shortly before kick off.
It was certainly a lively game and we seemed to show no signs of any after effects from our unexpected break from football, and it was a good defensive performance from us – and Manchester City needed some help to finally capitalise in the game.
With eleven minutes left of the clock, Rodri controversially came back from an offside position to steal the ball from Tyrone Mings, and Bernardo Silva scored from the resulting chance. Dean Smith’s tempers got the better of him and he was shown a red for his protests.
Not a VAR in sight it seems.
In the 90th minute, Matty Cash handled in the box for their second but plenty will again feel we’ve been cheated out of something, as despite the hosts overall chances and control of the game, we almost threatened as much as they did in reality and if they hadn’t been gifted the first, it could well have finished differently.
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Etihad Stadium
Premier League
20/01/2021 6:00 pm
Attendance: 0
Referee: Jonathan Moss
Manchester City | Aston Villa | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bernardo Silva (79), Gundogan (pen 90) | |||||||
Ederson | Martinez | ||||||
Walker | 28 | Cash | |||||
Stones | Konsa | ||||||
Ruben Dias | Mings | ||||||
Cancelo | Targett | 75 | |||||
De Bruyne | 59 | Douglas Luiz | |||||
Rodri | Barkley | 68 | |||||
Gundogan | Traore | 68 | |||||
Bernardo Silva | Grealish | ||||||
Sterling | 72 | McGinn | |||||
Foden | Watkins | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
Gabriel Jesus | 59 | Heaton | |||||
Zinchenko | 28 | Taylor | 75 | ||||
Steffen | Nakamba | ||||||
Torres | El Ghazi | 68 | |||||
Mendy | Engels | ||||||
Fernandinho | Guilbert | ||||||
Mahrez | 72 | Elmohamady | |||||
Garcia | Davis | ||||||
Bernabe | Ramsey | 68 |
Game Statistics |
||
28 | Goal attempts | 11 |
9 | On Target | 4 |
16 | Corners | 2 |
10 | Fouls | 9 |
0 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
0 | Red Cards | 0 |
69 | % | 31 |
That was a great game of football, we defended well and looked dangerous going forward. Had we lost that two nil to top class goals from open play I’d not be too unhappy in the circumstances. The way in which they scored their opener spoiled the whole thing for me. Still, I’ll take the positives, we could have won that on another day. Some of our boys looked less than match sharp but with winnable games coming thick and fast our players will be back to their best in no time.
100% Gutting to lose in that manner but I wouldn’t have begrudged City the win in other circs.
Fair play, as a City fan, I’d have been disappointed by Silva’s goal and the “handball” for the pen but these days, them’s the rules, crazy as they are. It seems to me that, with the exception of the change in the offside rule (changing being level from offside to on) The FA, UEFA, FIFA whoever it is has cocked up every other change they’ve made. Every single one of them has needed explanations, slight changes, rewrites etc, etc, etc. The rules (laws) of football have been perfectly good for over 100 years but the prats in charge have to go and mess with them, WHY?
Fair play Ian. The first has got my goat because the rules are clear and a similar incident happened in Serie A tonight, and the ref blew up. The second I’d be gutted about as they constantly bang on about distance yet the referees generally always give them. I can partially accept that, and no doubt it happens elsewhere, but every marginal call has gone against us with VAR even then when they’ve come to the opposite decision in the very next game. It makes a mockery and then when you get the likes of United having an obligatory penalty every game, you really have to question the motivation. As said in other post, I wouldn’t have begrudged you the win tonight as you were better…but if we start accepting (across all clubs) games being decided by decisions like that, the game is further gone than I thought.
Good to hear from a Man City supporter sympathising. The laws of the game are changing so rapidly because of the cameras. Think back twenty years when sky commentators were saying “he was offside” “that was a handball” “we can see that, why can’t the ref”. We got what we asked for, a dog’s breakfast. Put the ball in the net and wait five minutes for someone to review it? Nah mate, it ain’t on. Do you remember the game last season when we had so many var checks lasting minutes and when we were searching for an equaliser there was only four minutes added on? I used to enjoy Saturday night ringside with Kent Walton back in the day, of course it was rigged. Mick MacManus and Steve Logan were the baddies, old ladies would batter them with their umbrellas. That was theatre, a circus. Do we want football to be like that?