Aston Villa v BWFC Saturday 16th December 2006
Well Aston Villa have been awarded more penalties than any other
Premiership
club this season, several of them dubious, but not today thank you very
much. A match that Villa had dominated and should have been comfortably
leading culminated in a third League defeat of the season after Stilian
Petrov tangled with Nicolas Anelka late on. Referee Mark Clattenburg
pointed to the spot and Speedo did the rest, hammering his penalty past
Gabor Kiraly to lift Bolton to fifth place in the table.But praise should indeed go to man of the match Jussi whop made several excellent saves, one save of the seaon too by my book!! He earned us 4 points.
Rarely can Martin O'Neill have looked so totally pissed off (typed with a wry smile). The Villa manager had seen his side outplay our boys for long periods but the combination of poor finishing and Jussi Jaaskelainen's excellent, World class goalkeeping kept Bolton's hopes alive. Twice Jussi's fingertips rescued his team-mates, the Finn's heroics providing the platform for Speed, who last week made his 500th Premiership appearance, to snatch only Bolton's second win at Villa Park in more than 50 years.
Bolton's dreadful record here appeared to play on the minds of Big
Sam's side in the opening 45 minutes. Rarely did the we enter the Villa
half, with Kiraly, making his debut in goal after arriving on loan from
Crystal Palace, not having cause to muddy the grey jogging bottoms he
wears with such distinction. Bolton were nothing like as clean, their
over-zealous tackling clearly angered O'Neill but his side were not
overwhelmed by the visitors' physical approach. Villa attacked with
purpose early on, liberating the impressive Gabriel Agbonlahor on the
right flank at every opportunity. The England under-21 international's
pace exposed Henrik Pedersen's defensive shortcomings on several
occasions in the first half, with Speedo's admirable awareness coming to
the full-back's rescue in the 11th minute.
Gareth Barry hurtled past Nicky Hunt before spearing a deep cross behind the our defence. Agbonlahor sped towards the back post but Speed, aware of the danger, stuck out a leg to turn the ball behind. Pedersen failed to heed the warning and moments later Agbonlahor outpaced his marker before firing a low cross into the six-yard box. His delivery eluded both Milan Baros and Chris Sutton, presenting an opening for Stilian Petrov that the Bulgaria midfielder struck against Abdoulaye Faye.
Then Agbonlahor, revelling in his freedom, escaped on the right only to shoot wildly wide, his wayward drive going out for a throw on the far side. Belatedly Bolton mustered a response, Ivan Campo's free-kick inviting Speed and Faye to head goalbound only for both players to fail to make any contact.
The home onslaught continued after the interval, Craig Gardner squandering Villa's best chance. Agbonlahor astutely nodded down Barry's floated cross at the far post, imploring the Villa substitute to score his first senior goal but Jaaskelainen produced a superb instinctive save to turn the his shot behind.
It was a feat Jaaskelainen repeated midway through the second-half, stretching to fingertip Gary Cahill's 35-yard piledriver over the crossbar that in my book is save of the season so far. Villa's anxiety was growing and their worst fears were realised in the 75th minute when Petrov tripped Anelka, leaving Speed to step forward and emphatically convert. Speedo, top man, said he'd been watching them warming up and the keeper always dived th e the right. So he choose to hammer the ball straight down the middle - and it worked a treat.
The last 10 minutes were nailbiting - the usual Bolton heart attack looming but we held on through injury time to complete a mugging of Villa. It's nice to see our lads coming out of a game like this and actually winning the game instead of doing what Villa did today - dominating but taking no points for their toils.
So we're fifth now - ahead of Pompey at long last, trailing the usual 4 'big' clubs. But There isn't much between Bolton, Liverpool and the arse... so we're still in with a should to Champions league - especially if we can put the recent bad run of form behind us and draw a line under this seasons bad path - coz we always get one!
On the down side, Davo, Pederson, Faye and Ricky Gardner all got booked - so Davo will miss next weeks game against City. Still the lad deserves a rest!
Sam says..................
"This was one of those situations where we got a victory we didn't deserve. But there have been many games recently where we have played well, created loads of chances and ended up losing 1-0 ourselves. This time it was the reverse of that and we owe a lot to Jussi. Our keeper wins us numerous points every season and today he played as big a part in us winning as Gary Speed's penalty. That is why he is now considered one of the top keepers in this division because of his consistent performances. If you have got someone like that in goal and someone capable of scoring at the other end then you can nick wins when you don't play as well as you can do."
Big Sam added: "I can also praise some of the defending we've had to do, some of the resilience our players showed against a team which looked as if it was going to over-run us. I thought the big point of the game was the chance that Craig Gardner missed for them at the start of the second half. They paid a heavy price for that and we got a 1-0 win but it is worth considering how many times we have lost 1-0 in the last few games".
Villa manager Martin O'Neill was far from despondent even though his
side have now gone six games without a win. He said: "We should have won
handsomely and we played very well. I don't recall our keeper having to
make a save. We created a number of good chances and have been excellent
in terms of our general football but their keeper makes some brilliant
saves and we have been beaten."
O'Neill felt the penalty, awarded for a foul by Stiliyan Petrov on Nicolas Anelka, was a harsh decision by referee Mark Clattenburg. He said: "I didn't think it was a penalty. I saw Anelka catch the back of Petrov's leg and he has gone down. But then some people will argue that we have had some generous penalties go our way this season. It's the old saying, if you live long enough, everything eventually comes around."
STATS
Bolton Wanderers: Jussi Jaaskelainen, Nicky Hunt, Abdoulaye Faye, Abdoulaye Meite (Tal Ben-Haim), Henrik Pedersen, Kevin Nolan, Ivan Campo, Gary Speed, Kevin Davies, Nicolas Anelka, Stelios Giannakopoulos (Idan Tal) (Ricardo Gardner)
Subs Not Used: Ricardo Vaz-Te, Ali Al-Habsi (GK)
Aston Villa: Gabor Kiraly, Olaf Mellberg, Liam Ridgewell, Gary Cahill, Gareth Barry, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Gavin McCann (Craig Gardner), Stilian Petrov, Steven Davis, Milan Baros (Juan Pablo Angel), Chris Sutton
Subs Not Used: Wilfred Bouma, Aaron Hughes, Robert Olejnik (GK)
Referee: Mark Clattenburg Attendance: 27,450
Booked: Abdoulaye Faye, Kevin Davies(5th yellow) Henrik Pedersen & Ricardo Gardner
Match report by the Editor (Smash and Grab - Ronnie Biggs would have been proud of this one.....)
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