To say it has not been an easy start to life in the Championship for Aston Villa would be something of an understatement, but Aaron Tshibola’s late goal rescued a point from what threatened to be another bleak afternoon for Roberto Di Matteo’s side.
Problems with Jack Grealish, who was left out here and has been fined by the club after reports of excessive partying in the wake of last weekend’s draw at Ipswich Town – “He needs to learn,” said Di Matteo – have added to the general miasma when this campaign was supposed to be a blast of fresh air. Villa remain without a win in seven, and with just one all season, but their revival here at least offers hope for the future. “It was great to see the spirit of the team,” said Di Matteo.
Before that rousing finale Villa were dismal in the main, though they could have been ahead inside the first five minutes. Albert Adomah’s pass put Jonathan Kodjia in the clear but the striker – signed from Bristol City in the summer for a Championship record – cut inside and saw his shot blocked by Ciaran Clark. For a player whose fee could rise to £15m, it was a disconcertingly timed finish.
The same description could have applied to the Villa side as a whole for the first hour. There is always a little extra needle in games between these sides – the result of an oddball rivalry that dates back to 2009 and Villa Park’s unabashed schadenfreude at condemning Newcastle United to relegation on the final day of the Premier League season – but only the visitors appeared up for the fight. And it was not only in their appetite for the scrap that Newcastle outdid their hosts.
While Villa were too often slack in possession, Rafa Benítez’s side were crisp and creative, and deservedly broke through midway through the first half. DeAndre Yedlin surged forward from right-back and his low cross was skewed into his own net by Tommy Elphick. The Villa captain’s afternoon nearly got even worse seven minutes later, when he was robbed on the edge of his own area by Dwight Gayle, but the striker shot straight into the shins of Pierluigi Gollini, the Villa goalkeeper.
The chuntering from the home terraces – an all-too-familiar, if entirely understandable, matchday soundtrack in these parts of late – broke into boos at the half-time whistle and the response from Di Matteo was to scrap the wing-back formation that had rendered his side so impotent. It brought an improvement in tempo, though not in quality, and Newcastle initially maintained the upper hand, with Mohamed Diamé missing the best of several chances, sidefooting wide from eight yards out after Jonjo Shelvey’s pull-.
But Villa, roused by a cranking up in volume from the Holte End, stirred and began to threaten to make Newcastle pay for their profligacy.
Mile Jedinak’s looping header on 68 minutes sent Villa Park into a frenzy that was curtailed by the assistant referee’s flag. Four minutes later, Jordan Ayew’s superb effort from distance pinged away off the post.
With the visitors discomfited by Rudy Gestede’s introduction from the bench, an equaliser was coming with the same inevitability as Newcastle’s opener and it finally arrived with two minutes to go. Tshibola, whose most notable contribution since his half-time introduction had been a dive, for which he was booked, nodded home from close range after a corner to the back post.
“We had so many clear chances to finish the game,” said Benítez, whose side host the new league leaders, Norwich, on Wednesday. “But after we have to defend better.”
