By the end, the only real cause for consternation for Tim Sherwood was that someone from Aston Villa’s camp had apparently leaked the team to their arch-rivals. Gary Rowett, Birmingham’s manager, explained afterwards that he had received “a little tip-off” that had influenced the impressive way they began this derby. It was after Sherwood changed his side at half-time that the team from the Championship could not cope and it was no coincidence that was when the talented Jack Grealish entered the field.
Sherwood said afterwards it was always his tactic to take Birmingham by surprise at half-time by removing Joleon Lescott, a central defender, and bringing on Grealish to orchestrate play, rather than operating with the unrefined, direct style of the first half. That drew a withering response from Rowett bearing in mind the voluble dissent that could be heard from Villa’s crowd in that period. “I’ve heard Tim say he did it purposely,” Rowett said. “I’m not so sure the tactic of being booed off at half-time would be a good one. They changed out of desperation because they had to.”
It was a spiky way to end the night but, ultimately, Sherwood would be entitled to think he got it right. Sherwood’s acceptance that changes were necessary was certainly fundamental to the victory, bearing in mind Grealish’s impact.
Jordan Ayew was brought on at the same time for the injured Gabriel Agbonlahor and he, too, was instrumental in Villa’s improvement. Rudy Gestede headed in the decisive goal and the tie ended in raucous celebrations for the home crowd, in stark contrast to the loud boos that followed the Villa players off the pitch at half-time.
Grealish was at the heart of everything, playing with the swagger that makes it obvious why Roy Hodgson wants him to defect to England and sever his ties with Republic of Ireland. Ayew brought pace and energy into a previously sterile attack and Sherwood praised his team for not being distracted by the reaction at half-time. “They took a lot of criticism out there,” he said, repeating his claim that it was all a deliberate strategy. “We showed a lot of bottle even after a first half like that – even though it’s how I wanted them to play.”
Sherwood had told everyone to expect “blood and thunder”. At times, it was more thud and blunder in the first half. Yet Birmingham missed a trick after the restart when their opponents might have been vulnerable. A touch more ambition at that stage and it is entirely feasible the home crowd would have become even jumpier. Instead Villa set about the game with a new sense of urgency and, after 62 minutes, Grealish played the ball out to the overlapping left-back, Jordan Amavi, in space. The cross was whipped over and Gestede flashed his header past Tomasz Kuszczak in the Birmingham goal.
Birmingham will look back on a wonderful chance for Jacques Maghoma after 74 minutes but on the balance of play there could be no debate that with Grealish and Ayew on the pitch the more classy play came from the home team. Villa might also have won a second-half penalty when Grealish went down under Kuszczak’s challenge and the only consolation for Birmingham is that they matched their opponents for long spells and were marginally the better side in the first half.
Rowett’s team played without trepidation. They knocked the ball around confidently and it must have been startling for Sherwood, however he attempted to dress it up, to see the inability of his players to gain any early momentum.
Neither team created a great deal during the opening half but Birmingham did at least manage to turn the volume down inside Villa Park and that was some feat given the din before kick-off. The Holte End, under the floodlights, can make a tremendous noise when it is in the mood. Yet there were other sounds before the interval: loud groans when Lescott played a back-pass from near the halfway line, voluble dissent when Ciaran Clark sent a long punt out of play and a ripple of discontent every time Gestede miscontrolled the ball.
Towards the end of the first half Leandro Bacuna became the second Villa player to collect the ball near the middle of the pitch, look up to see what the options were and play a long pass all the way back to Brad Guzan.
On that occasion there were audible boos and when the half-time whistle went a few moments later it was the same again, with the decibels going up a few notches.
With Lescott off the pitch, Clark dropping back from midfield to defence and Grealish weaving his magic, Villa finally seemed to remember in the second half they were supposed to be a Premier League side at home to a team from the Championship. The volume went back up and, planned or not, Gestede made sure Sherwood’s changes were fully justified.
