Tim Sherwood described the 93rd-minute penalty that Christian Benteke scored against West Bromwich Albion to give Aston Villa their first Premier League win in 13 attempts as “the best feeling in the world” and hailed it as a turning point in their season.
The Villa manager said that picking up three points was far more important to him than winning the EuroMillions jackpot – after his wife had told him she had bought a lottery ticket on the morning of the game.
Benteke’s goal was only his third in the league this season and came after Ben Foster, who endured a miserable match, brought down Matthew Lowton after trying to retrieve a ball that the West Brom goalkeeper had no chance of reaching. Jonathan Moss, the referee, pointed to the spot and Benteke showed remarkable composure to wait for Foster to dive before rolling the ball into the opposite corner.
The win lifted Villa three points clear of the teams in the relegation zone and ended a run of seven successive defeats. It also gave Sherwood his first victory since replacing Paul Lambert as manager.
It was no more than Villa deserved following an excellent first-half performance in which the outstanding Gabriel Agbonlahor gave them the lead. Saido Berahino equalised for West Brom midway through the second half and they were entitled to feel aggrieved that Alan Hutton was allowed to stay on the pitch after an awful challenge on their leading goalscorer. Hutton somehow escaped with only a booking.
Nothing, however, was going to spoil Sherwood’s night. “Best feeling in the world,” the Villa manager said, when asked to describe how he felt when Benteke scored. “When I left home this morning my missus said to me she had done the EuroMillions lottery, £54m jackpot. I said I’ll take three points all day. Seriously, I mean it – it means more to me.
“We’ve improved every game and I think tonight was the best performance, especially in the first half. I thought we dictated the pace of the game, controlled the football, created chances and should have been more than 1-0 up.”
Sherwood was full of praise for Benteke. “It takes a brave man to stand up there. I asked him before the game if he gets a penalty, what’s he going to do with it. Normally you make your mind up, someone like me would think I’m going to smash it to the left. He said: ‘What I do is wait for the goalie to sit down and roll it in the other corner.’ He did give me a little bit of confidence but I was still peeping through my fingers.”
Asked if the win over their local rivals – only Villa’s third victory in 24 league games – could prove to be a turning point, Sherwood said: “I think so, it’s huge for us. We’ve got a group of players who are not really suited to a relegation battle. The old fashioned style is blood and thunder and dig out results. We have to play as if we’re not in the relegation battle, we have to pass the ball and move, and I thought we did that. We’ve bucked the trend of seven Premier League losses and now we’re looking upwards and onwards.”
Sherwood explained he was making a point when he put his fingers on his neck and pretended to check his pulse as he walked towards the tunnel at the end. “Basically I’m saying we’re alive. There are people that wrote us off but we’re alive and kicking. If we go down, we go down fighting. The result is great but I think that performance, especially in the first half, was not of a team fighting relegation.”
Tony Pulis acknowledged that Foster had “a poor night” but refused to blame his goalkeeper for defeat. The West Brom head coach, who admitted Villa were the better team in the first half, also chose not to criticise Moss for failing to send off Hutton after the Villa defender thrust his studs into Berahino’s groin. “I’ve seen the challenge. Hutton gets a cross in for the [winning] goal [as well] but I don’t want to criticise Jon or anyone else,” Pulis said. “They [referees] get enough stick as it is.”
