FULL TIME: Aston Villa 2-1 West Bromwich Albion
And that’s that! What a rush of blood by Foster, who has been dismal this evening! What a cool spot kick by Benteke! And what a result for Villa, who end their seven-game losing run in the league, to earn a crucial three points! They leapfrog QPR out of the relegation zone and into 17th place, three clear of the drop! What a game! One which, in fairness, Villa deserved to win on the chances they created - and so nearly converted - in the first half alone. A turning point for the Midlands giants? Perhaps. It’s certainly the first big result of the Tim Sherwood era, and the manager skitters about the pitch accordingly. Those stats are beginning to look much better already.
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CRUCIAL GOAL! Aston Villa 2-1 WBA (Benteke 90+4 pen)
Benteke slots Villa’s first spot kick of the season into the bottom right! Foster, who has had a nightmare, all told, and whose head is bleeding after being clattered by Lowton, goes the wrong way, needless to say.
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Penalty to Aston Villa!
90 min +3: Foster is the hero, for a second, as he scrambles a superlative Delph shot, aimed for the bottom right, wide of goal. But there’s a second phase of Villa attack, the ball shipped in from the right, and Foster stupidly, clumsily mishandles a ball bouncing in the area. He should gather easily, but lets the ball break ahead of him. Lowton races into the area down the left, latches onto possession, and is upended by the hapless keeper!
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90 min +2: So this is the second of three added minutes. And most of it is used up by West Brom switching Morrison for Baird.
90 min +1: ... blooters a useless effort wide right and high. An attempted curler into the far corner, that was.
90 min: Fletcher’s pass down the right nearly opens Villa up. West Brom have to settle for a corner. And they nearly replicate their goal, but not quite. Villa go up the other end, Grealish nearly bringing down a deep right-wing cross to get a shot away, then battling to win a free kick just to the left of the area, Morrison clumsily bowling him over. This set piece is in a very dangerous position. Bacuna steps up, and ...
88 min: Now Hutton clatters into Berahino. The striker gets up, and the pair go nose to nose. It’s threatening to get out of control, as Lescott arrives to point an accusatory finger, right in Hutton’s coupon. The pair are booked, which means Hutton has a two-game ban. That’s a bit rough on Berahino, really, because Hutton crumped his studs right into the young striker’s fruit bowl. That’s a red card all day long, really. But Hutton will still miss the FA Cup game between these sides at the weekend, plus Villa’s trip to Sunderland.
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86 min: Hutton is abruptly stopped in his tracks as he romps down the right. Gardner’s tackle is as obvious a booking as you’ll see all season. Perfect comic timing, as he slides in from off the screen and upends his man. Wheech!
84 min: Berahino jigs with purpose down the left, and whips a high cross into the area, towards the far post. There’s nobody there. “Do any Villa fans have a worry that there might be a bit of the Alan Shearers about Sherwood’s appointment and potential for saving the club?” wonders David Wall. “He doesn’t have very much more of a track record, and I’m not sure how much can be read from his six months at a club packed with good players and where the previous manager’s dismissal was really just a symptom of impatience. The situation at Villa is very different and probably needs more than a bit of motivation for people who are under-performing.”
82 min: Tim Sherwood’s last roll of the dice tonight: an unhappy looking Agbonlahor is removed, with Weimann, misfiring of late, taking the goalscorer’s place.
81 min: Clark is booked for a Power Cuddle on Ideye, as the striker thinks about breaking down the left. All in the centre of the park, so the resulting free kick means nothing.
79 min: Lowton, from wide on the left, curls a magnificent cross towards the far post. He’s not far from finding Benteke, but Brunt steps in to head clear, marvellously so. Then another phase of Villa attack, Lowton cutting in from the left wing and attempting a curler into the top-right corner. It’s blocked at source. West Brom are holding firm, as Villa crank it up a bit, looking for the three points they desperately require.
77 min: Bacuna comes on for the increasingly anonymous Cleverley.
76 min: A long rake down the West Brom right. Gardner nearly latches onto it, breaking into the Villa box, but hesitates and the chance is gone. A lot of tension in Villa Park. The home fans know just how valuable a win - and how devastating a loss - would be.
74 min: It’s end to end nonsense, with moves falling apart 20 yards from goal. Nothing’s quite coming off. Fletcher attempts to block a Delph run, irritating the Villa man so much he rakes the back of the West Brom player’s legs with a wild kick. Not sure he connected, but if the referee had seen that, there could have been bother for Delph there. A sign of the increased panic Villa will be feeling, because this hasn’t been a dirty game at all.
71 min: That West Brom break came after a period of Villa pressure, Lowton and Grealish trying their best to work an opening down the left. And now another chance for Villa, Hutton whipping a ball in from the right, Grealish meeting it on the volley with the side of his foot, 12 yards out. The effort’s straight at Foster, but was travelling at pace; a couple of feet either side, and the keeper wouldn’t have been able to gather easily.
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69 min: Berahino, to the left of the centre circle, sprays a pass wide right for Morrison, who is clear down the channel in Agbonlahor Country! But he doesn’t have Agbonlahor’s spring heels, and can’t scoot into the area like the Villa man did in the first half. He rolls a ball back across left for Ideye, but it’s just behind the striker. Villa escape. But only just. West Brom have their tails up now.
68 min: Another of Tim Sherwood’s water bottles has just bitten the dust. He’s got the funk on.
GOAL! Aston Villa 1-1 WBA (Berahino 66)
A long ball from the right, sent to the far post. Lescott rises and nods back into the six-yard area, where Berahino pings a header straight into the net from close range past a helpless Guzan! Villa could easily have had three or four in the first half, but suddenly they’re level!
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65 min: Morrison drops a shoulder and makes good down the right. A lovely low cross into the area. Clark slides in to concede a corner at the near post, with Berahino and Ideye just behind. Good defence. But from the corner ...
63 min: It’s tense in the Villa Park stands. The BT producer doesn’t slide the pitchside mic down quickly enough, and a deliciously desperate, spittle-flecked “you effing cee” rings through all our speakers. No apology from the broadcaster, which is very much to their credit. We’re all adults here, and it’s after the watershed.
61 min: Lescott stumbles into Benteke down the Villa right. A free kick in a dangerous position. Westwood’s set piece is hopeless, far too high and long. Lowton tries to salvage the move on the other wing, with the box loaded, but can’t quite manufacture a cross himself. Very poor.
60 min: N’Zogbia feels the shepherd’s crook around his neck. Grealish is his replacement.
59 min: Hutton tries to belt a volley home from 35 yards down the inside-right channel. You see how you’ve imagined it? Well, that.
57 min: A loose ball bouncing down the West Brom inside-right channel. Berahino chests it on adroitly to release Ideye, but the flag goes up for offside. Signs that West Brom are beginning to wake up from their 47-minute slumber.
56 min: The clumsy Okore clatters into Berahino as the pair contest a ball down the West Brom left. A chance for West Brom to load the box, and cause some rare bother. Brunt is over this one. And he whips a stunning ball into the box, allowing Dawson to meet with his head, level with the left-hand post, six yards out. He must surely score, but a dismal effort is high and wide left. What a chance. On the touchline, Tony Pulis has his head in his hands, and he might have said the c-word. At the very least, an eff.
54 min: Dawson is in acres down the right, set free by a lovely crossfield ball from Yacob. His ball into the box isn’t any good, though, and with Ideye and Berahino in the middle, hoping to sidefoot one home, Lawton is able to dive across and block. A fine clearance.
53 min: ... looks for the top right, but overcooks it. High and wide. Shame for Villa, because Foster was heading across in the other direction. The West Brom keeper’s performance isn’t quite in shocker territory, yet, but he certainly hasn’t been impressive this evening.
52 min: Agbonlahor goes on a marvellous slalom down the inside-left channel. He panics Lescott into a rash tackle, stepping across the trickster in the hoodlum style, 25 yards from goal. That’s a clear free kick, and a clear booking. The referee makes both decisions accordingly. Westwood is over this. He steps up, and ...
50 min: N’Zogbia embarks on a determined dribble down the right. He reaches the area, before over-elaborating, with team-mates screaming in the middle for a pass. “Keystone Cops piano music (33 min) DOES play in my head whenever the ball comes to Villa’s box,” admits Andy Brennan. “Shame as up till Christmas our defence was solid. But after nearly scoring 3 (THREE) times so far, the unofficial anthem from black ‘n’ white Villa days, Theme From An Unmade Silent Movie, replaces the Keystone Cops wonky piana.”
48 min: Popular BT Sport analyst Michael Owen is currently running through teams who, like Villa, have been considered Too Good To Go Down, only to get relegated anyway. “Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday.” No mention of Newcastle, which is odd. And yes, it has been a slow start to the half.
The teams are back out. Villa kick off, heading towards the Holte End. There have been suggestions that Villa should have won a penalty when Agbonlahor saw his shot cleared off the line by Lescott (27 mins). This is because Foster clattered into the player after he got his shot away. Hmm. You’ve seen them given, certainly. “Watching Tim Sherwood react to play is like seeing a randomly frantic fitness instructor,” suggests Glenn Kuly. “It would be great to see Villa string some wins together, to give the man some serenity.”
Half-time advertisements, courtesy of erstwhile local channel ATV, transmitted during an episode of Tiswas, I’ll be bound. Featuring scaled-down Steve Bruce lookalike Bernard Cribbins, and a public information film which even by the time-honoured standards of the format is needlessly jarring and scary. Also, just how many people were suffering severe facial injuries caused by folk carrying sheets of plate glass round corners, Laurel and Hardy style, in the early 1980s? Not so many that the government were required to commission a short film about it, surely.
HALF TIME: Aston Villa 1-0 West Bromwich Albion
Just before the half-time whistle, Delph turns Dawson out on the Villa left, and unleashes a magical curler towards the bottom-right corner. It’s across Foster and appears to be heading in, but clatters off the base of the right-hand post, out and away! So unfortunate! And that’s that for the first half, in which Villa have scored a rare goal, hit the post, and had two efforts cleared off the line, one by half the width of a molecule. That’s the magic of Tim! But they’re only the one goal up. Will they live to regret their bad luck?
44 min: Okore is a liability tonight. First he slices a clearance straight to Berahino down the Villa left, but gets away with it, the striker not quite able to control. Then he’s involved in a defensive shambles down the other flank, which sees Berahino flicks Ideye clear down the inside-right. He’s clear and heading towards the box, but the flag goes up for offside. He’s maybe a toenail’s width ahead of the last man. You’d normally expect the attacker to get the benefit of the doubt there.
43 min: Jacob is booked for attempting to rugby tackle N’Zogbia from behind. A free kick, 30 yards out down the left. Villa load the box, pointlessly so, as the set piece is easily clanked clear by Lescott. For various reasons, this was a lot of intense fun for 30 minutes or so. Since then, it’s been poor fare.
41 min: Cleverley strides down the right and curls a brilliant ball towards Benteke, on the penalty spot, having bounded in from the left. The striker should really plant a powerful header goalwards, but heads downwards and away to the right.
40 min: Hutton is very lucky to escape a booking for a Huttonesque lunge on Berahino, 35 yards out. Brunt chips the ball into the area down the inside right. Guzan hesitates, having decided to come out. Morrison, competing down the right, hesitates too. If either had kept going, they’d have won the ball. As it is, the thing bounces harmlessly out for a goal kick. Both players have the good grace to look thoroughly embarrassed.
38 min: Very scrappy, now, this. Though West Brom have at least managed to stem the Villa tide, which was fairly relentless for 15, 20 minutes or so.
36 min: Villa are pressing with purpose. West Brom are having to ping some precision passes around simply to keep possession for more than two or three seconds. Fletcher, Gardner and Yacob exchange rat-a-tat passes, eventually shuttling the ball wide for Brunt, whose deep cross is dealt with easily by Lowton. Now it’s the away side who are displaying signs of anxiety and low confidence. And look at where we were half an hour ago. Football, huh.
33 min: Some pretty triangles in the middle of the park by West Brom. Fletcher, Berahino and Morrison are all involved, inching down the ground in a pretty style, before Morrison attempts to burst clear down the right. He has to settle for a corner, which is delivered ineptly into the box by the same player. It doesn’t beat the first man, though a chance nearly presents itself anyway, as Lawton slices haplessly into the air. Eventually the ball’s bundled clear, but in scenes that should be soundtracked by a slightly out-of-tune piano. There’s a reason Villa are where they are right now.
30 min: West Brom can hardly get a touch of the ball. This has been an impressive showing from Villa on the whole, especially when you consider how nervous they were looking in the opening exchanges. “Surely I can’t be the only person who saw the scoreline in the AVL-WBA match and said, ‘I wonder which WBA player scored the own goal?’” quips Peter McMurry. Indeed, indeed. And now here’s Villa threatening to turn into a goal machine!
27 min: Another simple long ball, and West Brom are all over the shop again! Agbonlahor busts clear down the left, cuts into the area, and slides one under Foster. The ball’s bouncing goalwards, into the empty net, but Lescott slides in brilliantly to hook the ball off the line! As things stand, Aston Villa have fallen roughly three inches short of a 3-0 lead.
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24 min: West Brom attempt to come straight back at Villa, Morrison in a little space down the right, but his ball into the centre is not much good. Villa Park is bouncing after that opening goal. The home fans haven’t seen too many this season. That’s only the tenth! And it’s Agbonlahor’s first in 14. Relief all round.
GOAL! Aston Villa 1-0 WBA (Agbonlahor 22)
Villa Park erupts, and the opening goal was so simple! A long clearance by Guzan. Benteke rises and flicks a header down the inside-right channel. Agbonlahor is free! He enters the area, and slips it past Foster into the bottom left, with Lescott and McAuley not able to get back in time. Sherwood goes racing off down the touchline. You can’t say he doesn’t walk it like he talks it!
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21 min: A Villa free kick down the right. They load the box, so N’Zogbia attempts to thrash a direct shot home from 40 yards. Nope! What a ludicrous decision.
19 min: Cleverley drifts in from the left and unleashes a rising drive, aimed towards the top-right corner. Too high, and Foster had it covered. But Villa have been the better side after a slow first ten minutes.
18 min: Nothing much has happened since that astonishing goalline cock-up/save. I don’t think anybody can quite believe what happened. What’s right is right, of course, but Foster really didn’t deserve to get away with that. And poor Villa can’t catch a break.
15 min: On the touchline, Sherwood continues to eff and jeff.
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14 min: Benteke is inches away from giving Villa the lead! An inch, maybe. A ball hoicked into the West Brom area from the left. Benteke, level with the right-hand post, heads down for Agbonlahor, who has his back to goal but spins on the penalty spot and lashes a low shot straight at Foster. The keeper should gather easily, but lets the ball squirm through his hands. It’s going in, a dreadful error, but Foster turns to smother in a panic. And the goalline technology doesn’t buzz, so no goal! Replays show roughly 999 thousandths of the ball across the line, but not the whole thing. That’s as close as you can get! Villa are so unlucky. Foster has got away with a big one there.
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13 min: A good old-school route-one lump upfield by Cleverley. McAuley tries to help it back to Foster with his head, but only succeeds in clanking it off Benteke. The ball still makes it back to the keeper, but only just. Shoddy defence.
10 min: They’re looking a bit better up the other end, Benteke winning a right-wing cross on the edge of the box and heading down for Cleverley, who attempts to break clear on goal down the right-side channel. Cleverley miscontrols however and bundles a white shirt to the ground. Still, Villa are causing a little bother in the West Brom area, which should give them hope.
9 min: Brunt, in a tight space down the left, digs a majestic cross out from near the corner. Clark is forced to turn it out for a corner on the right, without anybody near him. That’s a sloppy, nervous error, but he gets away with it because the linesman puts his flag up; seems Brunt’s cross had curled out of play. But Villa looked shaky again there.
8 min: Delph, just in front of the centre circle, sprays a diagonal pass towards Benteke, who traps and strides clear into the area. Sadly for Villa, he’s offside. But that’s a bit better from the home team, who haven’t seen much of the ball early on.
5 min: Villa’s lack of confidence is betraying them early doors. Berahino very nearly breaks clear down the right, chasing after a long ball. Okore does better this time, coming across to mop up. A few nervous moans from the home fans already. On the bench, Sherwood has already displayed several of the classic Manager Under Pressure giveaway signs. Arms folded? Check! Bottle of water thrown down in frustration? Check! Effin’ and jeffin’? Check!
3 min: Okore plays a godawful clearing pass down the right wing, near his own penalty area, and it’s easily intercepted by Gardner, who ships the ball inside for Ideye. The striker nearly combines well with Berahino on the edge of the area, and for a second it looks like the latter will be breaking clear on goal. But he can’t quite control and the ball bounces out for a goal kick. Okore got away with some fairly shaky defending there, because his attempts to salvage the situation weren’t too impressive either.
2 min: All a bit scrappy in the opening exchanges, as you’d expect from two teams not quite clicking and in the lower half of the table. Gardner attempts to bustle down the middle of the park, but all the former Villa and Blues midfielder gets for his efforts is booed.
And we’re off! Villa get themselves into a huddle before kick-off. Ah a lovely motivational moment. That’s Tim! West Brom will get the ball rolling, kicking towards the Holte End in the first half. “It’s clear the difference between Villa and WBA is their two managers,” opines Rob Edwards. “Sherwood resembles a frightened owl on match days (albeit a well-dressed one). And Pulis looks as if he’d tear your face off for a laugh. Fear is a great motivator in these situations. Expect a routine 2-0 WBA win here.”
The teams are out! Aston Villa are in their famous Victorian claret and blue, while West Brom should be in their classic navy blue and white stripes, but of course this season are going with that weird white-with-navy-pinstripe number instead. Then again, no point being too conservative with a small cee, I suppose. Villa’s idiosyncratic Denmark rip-off of the mid-to-late 80s has gone down as something of a cult classic, after all, while for all the current Baggies kit’s faults, at least the club’s fans can watch their team without feeling guilty for sucking down that lovely pre-match ciggie. A rare old derby atmosphere at Villa Park!
Villa have made one change, with Charles N’Zogbia replacing Scott Sinclair. Ron Vlaar is still out with a calf injury. Albion meanwhile are unchanged from their win over Southampton, with hot striking partnership Saido Berahino and Brown Ideye shrugging off injuries to keep hold of their places. All of this means Villa fan Marcus Guest isn’t wholly optimistic, if this email is anything to go by: “We usually have to carry at least one player - but Cleverly, N’Zogbia and Agbonlahor in the same team is just masochistic. I’m assuming our best defensive midfielder and only flair player going forward are both dropped again as they don’t speak English so haven’t responded to Tim’s psych-op motivational talks. Really didn’t think we could get relegated - but that’s what all big teams who have gone down said, isn’t it?” Yep. You’ll have witnessed that one first hand.
The teams
Aston Villa: Guzan, Lowton, Okore, Clark, Hutton, Cleverley, Westwood, Delph, Agbonlahor, Benteke, N’Zogbia.
Subs: Bacuna, Sinclair, Weimann, Sanchez, Gil, Given, Grealish.
West Bromwich Albion: Foster, Dawson, McAuley, Lescott, Brunt, Gardner, Yacob, Fletcher, Morrison, Ideye, Berahino.
Subs: Wisdom, Olsson, Baird, Myhill, Pocognoli, Mulumbu, Sessegnon.
Referee: Jonathan Moss (W Yorkshire).
Poor old Tim Sherwood. As things stand, he’s the worst Aston Villa manager in the club’s entire history. Two games in charge, two defeats, that’s an overall record of zero percent. Zero percent! Even Alex McLeish, Dr Jo Venglos and Tommy Docherty did marginally better than that.
Admittedly, it’s a bit off, this, going after a man armed only with a ludicrously small statistical sample. But he started it! After all, it wasn’t us who argued that Sherwood’s win record at Tottenham - painstakingly built up over a period of 28 minutes matches - made him the club’s best boss of the Premier League era, despite the other 11 managers in question having a combined CV consisting of two English leagues, the French league, the Portuguese league, six Swiss leagues, the FA Cup, two Dutch cups, the Portuguese cup, the Spanish cup, five Swiss cups, the Emperor’s Cup in Japan, the Uefa Super Cup, three Europa Leagues and two League Cups. Admittedly only the two League Cups had anything to do with Spurs, but the point stands. Just about. On a rickety plinth.
But look on the bright side! Three wins on the bounce for Sherwood at Villa, and suddenly he’ll have a better win ratio than Ron Saunders, who won the league and whose team went on to win the European Cup. See, you can do anything with numbers. That’s why statistics, along with data, are so mind-crushingly tedious.
Thing is, while Sherwood’s working out is all over the place, his wider point is fair, because on all available evidence, he’s not half bad. His Spurs team won at Old Trafford, he introduced Harry Kane and Nabil Bentaleb to the side, and was the first man since 2008 to get a tune out of Emmanuel Adebayor. And yes, he did achieve the highest winning percentage of any manager in Tottenham’s history. Mock his gilet body warmer, and his old-school passion, if you like, but that’s a fairly decent return seeing he was only given his first shot at management back in December 2013. And he seems a fairly decent cove, too, likeable, enthusiastic and engaging. You need a hard heart, or a season ticket at St Andrews, to wish him ill.
Three wins on the bounce would change everything for Villa, of course. The six league points they’d earn would fire them clear of the relegation zone they’re currently floundering in, and they’d be in the semi-finals of the cup. And Sherwood would suddenly be a genius again. But it’s a big ask. Villa haven’t won in the league since December 7, when they scraped past ten-man Leicester City, and they’re currently on a seven-game losing league sequence. Only their recent cup wins, over Blackpool, Bournemouth and Leicester, offer any succour. And they’ve only scored 13 league goals all season, which is beyond pathetic, and threatening to make Derby County 07/08 look like Dixie Dean’s Everton.
Also, tonight they face West Bromwich Albion, who have only lost one game since the turn of the year, exactly the same time Tony Pulis took charge. The Baggies have only scored eight times on the road this season, but they’ve become tough to beat, coming back from two down at Burnley for a draw, churning out a win over high-flying Southampton. And when they hit form, boy do they hit form: their 4-0 evisceration of West Ham in the cup was one of the season’s best performances. By any side.
Villa desperately need a win to kick-start the Sherwood Era, and ease their relegation fears. West Brom could do with a result themselves, partly to consolidate their mid-table position, partly to give them hope for the weekend, when they return to Villa Park for the cup quarter-final. This should be a cracking midlands derby. It’s on!
Kick off: 7.45pm.
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