Villa once again found itselfs soundly beaten by Manchester Utd at Villa Park. Two Sundays running Villa have been beaten convincingly without scoring. Although Villa were 3 or 4 times better than last week, United is 10 times better than Fulham.
Villa took the game to United early on with Albrighton looking likely in his first Premiership start in a long time, having 2 good snap shots. The away side got into the game and it looked like end to end stuff.
United attacked Luna mostly on his return from injury and it was looking like he was still not match fit. Eventually, Luna was beaten and a cross came in, Albrighton went the wrong way and Januzaj headed against the post. With Guzan diving to stop the ball the net was empty and WELBECK beat Lowton to the rebound that had come perfectly back into the 6 yd box.
Villa could not find any inroads to the United area and soon enough Villa went 2 down. Villa lost possession in the middle of the pitch but seemed to be okay when Baker had the ball with no pressure. As he went to pass, his hamstring tweaked and the ball fell to United who went down the right again, but Baker couldn’t sprint to keep up and the low ball in found WELBECK whose shot went in under the bar.
Lambert kept switching the formations and had Gabby coming back as a makeshift defender to cover for both Luna and Baker who were now both limping and Villa had no centre half left with Okore, Vlaar and Herd all injured.
Villa started the second half well but again allowed a goal as a sublime flick found CLEVERLY on a one two and Guzan was too easily beaten on his near post.
If Villa had had eleven Albrightons on the field it probably could have won, but nobody was matching his play, although to be fair the Clarke/Lowton side was rarely troubled and they played well.
Eventually Weimann came on and injected some life and a well timed block stopped him getting an immediate goal.
Villa had some fight and there were 3 flashpoints in the game, Evra kicked Lowton after feeling unfairly tackled by the right back, although the ref rightly thought it a good tackle. Agbonlahor hit DeGea in the back causing the keeper to concede a corner after he nonchalantly dealt with a very poor Guzan clearance that Gabby didn’t give up on. The Spaniard and the Villa had words ending with the keeper pushing the forward in the throat. Finally Baker fouled Welbeck, the forward reacted and the two exchanged angry words.
With the poor looking sides like Palace, Hull, Norwich and Sunderland starting to pick up points Villa had better do something in the January market or it is going to be another season of relegation battles and judging by the boos ringing around the ground, Lambert has lost his empathy from many of the faithful.
Only one of his summer signings was out injured, of the rest only Luna started which meant he felt last season’s team was the better way to go on Sunday and that isn’t a good sign.
Soke next week and Delph will be back from suspension, but Gabby will serve his 5 card ban.