With three wins from four and real football back following on from the World Cup, Unai Emery went into his first derby clash as we welcomed Wolverhampton Wanderers to Villa Park for Wednesday evenings Premier League match.
Optimism and hopes were high following on from the Spurs win, but it was a slow start and Wolves took the lead 12 minutes in – there wasn’t much of a reaction – and the length of this sentence pretty much sums up the first 45 minutes.
All eyes to the second half, and Emery rolled the dice by taking off Young and bringing on Philippe Coutinho at the break.
Coutinho had a reasonable impact and looked far better than normal in some ways, and whilst there was slight improvement, we didn’t really test them or truly look like we were going to get back into. We did have a few more better moments – but we all knew there was still plenty of work to do anyway.
We did have a good period of more sustained pressure around the 70 minute mark, but Wolves also had a great chance to make it 2-0 with potentially a goal of the season contender, but just like Augustinsson’s effort was stopped with an insane clearance, they wasted their opportunity.
A few minutes later though, Danny Ings made no mistake as he pulled us level, and to be quite honest, I doubt anyone really saw that coming. We had massively ridden our luck here.
We should’ve won it as well, seconds before the full time whistle was blown, Leon Bailey went round the keeper, had an open goal and put it out for a goal kick – that in a nutshell summed up the overall game. and sadly, he knew it from his reaction afterwards.
It wasn’t great, but a much better end to the second half and I imagine Emery will be most pleased with the reaction and determination shown, not least his substitutions changed the game more in our favour.
No Man of the Match today folks, would anyone argue against Tyrone Mings after his performance.
Villa Park
Premier League
4/01/2023 9:00 pm
Attendance: 39978
Referee: Jarred Gillett
| Aston Villa | Wolverhampton Wanderers | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ings (78) | Podence (12) | ||||||
| Martinez | Sa | ||||||
| Young | 45 | Nelson Semedo | |||||
| Konsa | Collins | ||||||
| Mings | Kilman | ||||||
| Digne | 67 | Bueno | 79 | ||||
| Cash | Hwang Hee-chan | 59 | |||||
| Kamara | Neves | ||||||
| Douglas Luiz | 67 | Joao Moutinho | 59 | ||||
| Buendia | Nunes | ||||||
| Bailey | Podence | 45 | |||||
| Watkins | 66 | Diego Costa | 66 | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Sanson | Ait-Nouri | 59 | |||||
| Ings | 66 | Jimenez | |||||
| Chambers | Cunha | 66 | |||||
| Augustinsson | 67 | Sarkic | |||||
| Bednarek | Goncalo Guedes | ||||||
| Coutinho | 45 | Castro Otto | |||||
| Olsen | Gomes | 79 | |||||
| Dendoncker | 67 | Traore | 45 | ||||
| Young | Hodge | 59 | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 13 | Goal attempts | 10 |
| 4 | On Target | 3 |
| 7 | Corners | 8 |
| 6 | Fouls | 12 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 3 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 56 | % | 44 |