Villa grabbed 3 points at Carrow Road to match results from last season in 4 games running. New signing Kozak grabbed the only goal of the game in the 30th minute after coming on for the injured Benteke.
Villa started very brightly and Weimann had 2 chances in the first 3 minutes to put Villa ahead, his second shot hit the foot of the post and Benteke failed with the rebound, but was offside anyway.
Weimann started slightly behind Beteke more on the left wing with Agbonlahor tucked in the centre more the role N’Zogbia had last season. Tonev came in on the right wing with El Ahmadi and Delph tucked behind them. Westwood was left out as was Lowton replaced by Bacuna.
Norwich began to get in the game after the quick start and the Villa defence quickly looked shaky. Redmond seemed to have the better of Bacuna and Luna, who had started brightly, began to look uncomfortable as Snodgrass settled in.
Unluckily for Clarke, starting alongside Vlaar at the back, a cross bounced up his arm and the ball cradled itself into the inside of his elbow before slipping down and hitting his hand on the way back down. There was nothing he could have done about it, but referee Foy gave a penalty.
Snodgrass lined up at such an acute angle that if I were the keeper I would decide if he tanked it left footed straight at the opposite corner I would stand absolutely no chance, so I would throw myself the opposite way and hope he was tricking me. It happens to be Guzan’s favourite way to dive and Snodgrass was trying to trick him and his penalty was very poor so the American had no problem with it.
Norwich pressed on angrily after the miss and opened Villa’s defence again, but Van Wolfswinkel inexplicably managed to chest a ball over the bar.
After 15 minutes of Norwich dominance and shaky defending villa began to inch into the match and Norwich began to look shaky too.
Delph had played well early on He has recently had his OPTA stats compared to Lampard , however, he showed why he isn’t close to the Chelsea legend in the attacking front. He won the ball well in midfield, linked up with Benteke, who turned and found Tonev on the right. Delph stayed back instead of exploiting the space ahead of him and getting into the area. Tonev saw Villa’s 3 forwards all occupied by defenders and decided the best option was a shot. Had Delph been on the edge of the area in Lampardland who knows…..?
Benteke had not started that well, but was beginning to show life linking up well in a nice move with Weimann and Gabby. But, the Villa fans worst fears came when the big man went down with an apparent groin injury and had to be subbed.
Norwich had a chance before the substitution but the shot flashed wide. Kozak came on striker for striker. It almost seemed a midfielder would have been a better option to allow Villa to build and secure the middle where they looked over-run.
But, for Lambert this was the opportunity to show the fans the new lad as he may have to be the centre forward for a while anyway. It took 2 minutes for him to make an impact. Weimann found him with a lovely through ball which he controlled well, but placed his shot too calmly and the keeper pushed it aside, Gabby latched on to the rebound with searing pace and slipped the ball back to KOZAK and this time he slotted the ball home. Already better than Balaban.
It was nearly all Villa after the goal and Norwich’s passes were becoming as predictable as their penalty taking with Delph, El Ahmadi, Clarke, Bacuna and Luna all intercepting passes.
At half time the Canary fans booed, which had to only help Villa and Lambert must have wondered what happened to his old forward line which was missing the bite of their old bully boy Hoult.
The second half was pretty dull until the final 15 minutes. Most exciting things were the substitutions. Bassong had limped off right after the Villa goal, which was a shame for Villa as he had been their biggest offender in their defensive shakiness. After his departure Bennett and Turner kept Kozak in check, pardon the pun.
Gabby was subbed midway through the second minutes after ending a promising attack by running blindly into a defender, over playing the ball. Whether he took a knock, I am not sure, but it was disappointing as he was keeping the side together, Helenius did a nice job in his place though. You can see that he has a lot more ball skills than Kozak, who, despite his goal filled me with very little confidence that he can step in for the beast.
Norwich made a double substitution, with Hooper and Pilkinton coming on and for the second season running the home fans began the chant of you don’t know what you’re doing.
Turner blocked a cross in the area with his arm, but the ref deemed it ball to hand this time, but penalized Clark again when a cross hit his arm outside the area.
Villa made the final substitution on 76 minutes and it had come about 75 minutes too late as the sensationally terrible Tonev was replaced by Scylla who really did nothing for the next 19 minutes (injury time included), but nothing was still better than Tonev who I have now seen hit 5 shots that have been in a different post code from the goal and one that bounced twice in front of the keeper and whose passing was equally inept.
By now it was total Norwich and Hooper should have scored, but couldn’t get on to the end of a cross and the ball hit his knee, but it still took a terrific save from Guzan to preserve the clean sheet.
Clarke launched himself at a shot which deflected into Luna’s face and went across the goal for a corner. Clarke also nearly deflected a cross into his goal.
Despite it all, Guzan was rarely troubled and handled almost every cross majestically.
In the end Villa will potentially go to Stoke with Guzan, Luna and Benteke all questionable after picking up knocks. No questions were really answered as this Norwich side is not even as good as the one that plummeted into the relegation fight last season and at times Villa made them look good, conceding 64% of possession. I would say the Canaries don’t even look as good as Reading of last season.
Man of the match: Guzan with honourable mentions to Luna, Gabby, Delph and Weimann.