Villa overcome “sh*t first-half” to beat Wolves at Villa Park

It has been a very up-and-down week for Aston Villa. Yesterday’s victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers rounded off a week, during which Villa won all three of their games, including their long-awaited return to the Champions League. We also said goodbye to a Villa legend, Gary Shaw, who sadly died on Monday following a fall. RIP Gary. Thoughts go to his family and friends.

Villa welcomed Wolves to Villa Park hoping to continue their good start to the season. Wolves have failed to win a game so far this season in the Premier League and let’s be honest, they turn into prime Barcelona every time they make the short journey down the M6.

As expected Wolves started bright and Villa looked to have a European hangover with Unai Emery describing the first half as “sh*t” in an interview with BBC’s Match of the Day.

Emery’s side did change things in the second half to take all three points with Wolves finishing the day bottom of the Premier League.

Report: Aston Villa 3-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers

Villa made just one change from the side that beat Young Boys earlier in the week with Diego Carlos coming in for Lamare Bogarde who dropped to the bench.

The visitors dominated the first half and came close early on when Matheus Cunha picked out Mario Lemina from a corner but the Gabonese international’s header was saved with ease by Emi Martinez.

Wolves took a deserved lead halfway through the first half when they capitalised on a Villa error. Martinez played the ball out to Carlos who played a loose pass to Amadou Onana but Cunha was able to cut out the pass and take advantage by scoring from the edge of the box to make it 0-1.

They continued to put the pressure on Villa and could have made it two when a ball fell loose to Rayan Aït-Nouri following a cross from Lemina but his effort went just wide of Martinez’s goal.

Emery described the first half as the worst since he has been Villa manager and made changes at half-time. Leon Bailey and Ian Maatsen replaced Lucas Digne and John McGinn and the home side looked back to their normal selves.

Bailey beat Aït-Nouri on the wing before picking out Ollie Watkins but his header was cleared off the line before goalkeeper Sam Johnstone pushed it over the bar.

Further changes were made with the introduction of Ross Barkley and Jhon Duran and the latter was involved in Villas equalizer.

Duran’s heavy touch allowed Wolves to try and win the ball back but the big striker used his power to win the ball back and play the ball to Morgan Rogers who in turn picked out Watkins, who was on Craig Dawson’s shoulder, and his deflected effort looped over Johnstone to make it 1-1.

Villa were on top now with Wolves on the ropes and it was only a matter of time before they took the lead. Youri Tielemans sent over a beautiful cross from the left and found Ezri Konsa who was running in at the back post and was able to make it 2-1.

The home side then wrapped up the game in injury time when Maatsen played through Rogers who was able to cut the ball inside for Duran to score a tap-in and secure all three points for Villa.

The result means Villa are currently joint top and are guaranteed to finish the weekend in the top four once the remainder of the fixtures are played out today.

Player of the Match

Morgan Rogers continued his fine start to the season and contributed to two assists in Villa’s second-half come-back. The 22-year-old continues to go from strength to strength and surely its just a matter of time before he gets international recognition.

What the managers said

Emery: “Clearly it was two different halves. The first half was so, so poor. We didn’t manage to impose the plan we were trying to implement on the pitch.

“They were better than us and deserved to score and would have deserved more.

“We wanted to change things to get more energy with some fresh players, and explain we needed to push more and take some risks to push them back, and win possession back more quickly.

“We controlled the match better from there, created the chances and deserved to win in the end.”

Gary O’Neil: “We failed to cope when we came under pressure which is obviously going to come away from home, at Aston Villa when you’re 1-0 up.

“The pressure was always going to arrive, there are some key moments in the second half around winning tackles and stopping crosses which end up costing you.

“The game goes away from you at 2-1, then it felt like it got away from the boys fairly quickly when there wasn’t an onslaught on the goal.

“There were a couple of situations where you have to do better if you want to compete with Aston Villa.”

Up Next

Villa will enter the Carabao Cup as they travel to Wycombe Wanderers on Tuesday evening. They return to Premier League action next Sunday with another away trip but this time to Ipswich Town.

Wolves are back in action next Saturday, in the Premier League as they welcome Liverpool to Molineux.