The best thing that happened during Villa’s 0-0 draw at home to Wolves, for me, was a power surge that took out the cable and allowed me to miss 6 minutes of this game. The only thing better would have been a longer outage.
Villa’s power was out throughout a dull game, with Darren Bent getting no service until an 86th minute cross from Barry Bannan picked him out, but the England striker headed over.
It could have been so different, when Petrov, in the first half, made up his mind to shoot, not realizing that a Wolves central defender had slipped over leaving Bent all alone on the edge of the are screaming for a small through ball.
Alex McLeish disappointed me by picking pretty much the same eleven that beat Blackburn last week. The 3 forward thing looks nice to show us there is an attacking side to him, but realistically in a game against Wolves, midfield rules. His only change was placing midfielder Chris Herd a right back to replace Luke Young who was disappointingly, for me anyway, transferred to ambitious QPR.
Herd played very well throughout and did not let himself down. He was unlucky to hit the post in the first half, literally!! As he ran in to meet a corner, his momentum carried him into the goalpost and he was out for a moment. But, the scare passed and although his next pass after the injury looked like a concussion victim’s, he finished the game well and put 2 headers over the bar.
Delph was again very good in midfield. He was about 3 poor passes short of being man of the match again. The honour should go to Dunne or even Collins who never looked in any danger at the back.
Wolves had a lot of possession and were the better team for the first 10 minutes and the last 10, with a couple of good moment in between. Their fans didn’t care as they sang ‘We are top of the league’ in the closing seconds.
Mcleish made a poor substitution, when he sent Bannan to play right wing in place of N’Zogbia. Bannan looked lost until 5 minutes left when Albrighton took his place, but found himself playing right back as Wolves closed out the game well.
N’Zogbia did not bring his explosiveness again. He had a super chance of showing it off, when he turned the Wolves left back beautifully, but instead of driving into the area as Young would have, he decided to be to patient awaiting back up and Wolves defenders got back. He’s a tremendous young player, but he seems as nervous as a budgie in a room full of cats, right now.
I am a huge supporter of Mr. Lerner, but we need quality players that can scare defenders, brought into the side in the next 4 days or this season is going to be long and the fans are going to want AM’s head, but it really won’t be Mcleish's fault, will it?.