THRILLER AT VILLA – six-goal epic disappoints both managers
Villa Park was lit up with sunshine on Sunday afternoon as Aston Villa took on Everton. Clare McEwen was there to witness the ups, the downs, and the multiple goals.
During her pre-match press conference, Natalia Arroyo said, “there will be a lot of ups and downs in the game because Everton always force you to do that.”
She was not wrong. The game at Villa Park was an epic six-goal battle, with momentum swinging one way then the other, particularly in the action-packed last 30-minutes.
It started relatively calmly, almost sedately, as Villa kept possession for the first few minutes. But they looked a little sluggish, imprecise with passing, too quick to move the ball, and ultimately playing without enough patience and strategy. It seemed the international break had disrupted the consistency they were beginning to build.
With Villa looking a step off the pace, Everton soon broke free and had three good chances in quick succession before Kelly Gago finished one off. Everton were winning the majority of the balls, getting to everything first, winning their duels: they could have finished Villa off in the first half when Gago and Toni Payne combined beautifully but missed the target.
As the game continued with Villa looking raggedy out-of-possession, a young girl’s voice caught my attention. A few rows behind me, at the top of her voice, she was shouting, “Let’s go Villa, let’s go.” I was reminded of the bigger picture, the importance of the role models she could see, and the fun she was having despite her team not quite firing on all cylinders.
It was five minutes before half time before Kirtsy Hanson had Villa’s first real chance. Shortly after, she had another. Could they sneak something before half-time? With stoppage time being added to the stoppage time, Georgia Mullett met Noelle Maritz’s cross in the eighth minute of time added on and Villa somehow went into half-time level.
The first 15-minutes of the second half were somewhat lacking in excitement. Apparently this was so both teams could pack all the drama into the last half an hour. On the stroke of an hour, Georgia Mullett turned provider and Kirsty Hanson scored from her cross. It was Villa’s first fluid move all game.
But Villa remained sluggish out-of-possession; too slow to close down a technically skilled Everton side. Martina Fernandez was given too much space with the ball on the edge of the area and slid it through to Hikaru Kitagawa. Kitagawa, who’d only been on the pitch for a few minutes, bent it beautifully into the far corner to level the score.
Ten minutes later, Aston Villa took the lead again. Rachel Daly got a massive cheer as she came on as a sub and I was still noting it down when another enormous roar went up. Aston Villa had scored. This time it was Villa’s sub, Ebony Salmon, making the difference – although her long-range strike was creeping wide before Ruby Mace’s unfortunate deflection sent it past goalkeeper Emily Ramsey.
Rather than managing the game, Villa fancied their chances at scoring a fourth but when they lost possession, they remained too slow in snuffing out any danger. Deep into stoppage time at the end of the match, they gave Ornella Vignola too much space to put in her cross and Gago punished them with her second, an uncontested ball just outside the six-yard box.
And so, a game that started sedately, turned into a six-goal thriller. Great for the neutral but both managers were disappointed with a point.
Understandably Natalia Arroyo felt robbed when they were so close to victory but she was also disappointed with the performance. She described the performance as “less energetic than normal, we were too reactive, we were a little bit sleepy.”
She acknowledged Georgia Mullett as one of the few positives from the game, with a goal, an assist, and ultimately with player of the match. But on the whole, it was a disappointing team performance from Aston Villa.
Did you show enough bravery in that first half today?
Um, no, I think especially out of possession we were a little bit too passive. I take that on me, maybe the fact that Everton is a difficult team to analyse, sometimes they have one shape or the other, they change. So we were just showing them less than normally because we were not sure what to expect: a back three as they did against other shapes similar to us, against Leicester, but they were trying different things against Man U and London City or other recent games. So we were not sure it was like let’s see with the lineup how we approach that? So I think it’s not bravery, maybe it was too protective and literally like bad timing. So other days we are, I think more aggressive and I think we weren’t and in possession, yes, we were just going to the easy path, go long, and too quick, I think when we realised, we had more time than we first felt, we started playing the game we wanted and that was a little bit the feedback that they gave to us: we can play better; we can play braver. So yeah, far from our first level, but the good thing is, the first feeling that I got from the players is that we don’t want this to repeat and this is an accident. That’s what we need to show and to demonstrate in the next few games. That this was just an accident.
And you do learn more from these situations than an easy win so, this is perhaps going to kick you on towards Christmas?
Well, at some point you don’t want to learn that much [wry smile]. So if I just win a game and don’t learn anything, I will definitely take this.
Your half time talk, there was a difference in intensity in the second half. Was that the players saying we can do better or did you say something specific?
Yeah, normally it’s a mix. I try to go in and listen to some of them, ask some specific things, adjust some things that from the bench are not being able to say to them and to send the message across and then showing some simple scenarios that we need to adjust – out of possession, in possession. But it was definitely, we need to play a better second half, we don’t need to give them the chance and I think we played properly and the second half is just we need to be smarter in the last minutes to not allow them to find this cross and to keep the ball a little bit more when you are there with a 3-2.
Brian Sørensen was happier with his team’s performance but also felt a bit like they’d lost two points.
That’s got to feel like a win?
Yeah I think of course a bit of both. Disappointed that we don’t take advantage in the first 30 minutes, we were by far the best team on the pitch, we should be leading with more than one.
We then allow them to come back into it and we spoke about that in half time. I think we started okay but then they get a, yeah, like an easy goal from our defensive point of view. And then, of course, we need to press and stretch and that stretch I think we saw in the second half, it was a bit not as smooth as in the first but, you know, credit to the girls that they kept fighting, kept going for it and, and finally got the reward in the end.
An important point for you though?
Yeah, yeah. For me, you know, it’s of course, it gives some morale boost but it’s more like the performance. If we can maintain those levels, I think we’re looking into a bright future. But it’s still managing a lot of players that, you know, [we] had four or five on the bench that weren’t able to do 90, so it’s like, okay, these could do a half and at this level it’s hard when you have to change the back line and so on. So, yeah. But that’s where we are at the minute. We need to keep going.
