English Premier League - Match Review: Luke Young Goal Leads to Aston Villa’s 1-0 win over Everton
Aston Villa played Everton in their third Premier League match of the season, in what was expected to be a do-or-die match for their caretaker manager Kevin MacDonald’s public audition for the permanent managerial job at Villa Park.
Villa came to the match after getting knocked out of the Europa League qualification, as they lost their mid-week play-off to Rapid Vienna by three goals to two. In the last league match of the season, Villa put up a terrible display of football as they missed a penalty and allowed Newcastle United to score six goals against them without reply.
On the other hand, Everton’s form before the match was not all that impressive, as the Toffees were looking for their first win of the season after drawing their last match against Wolverhampton Wanderers. In their first league match of the season, David Moyes’ outfit was beaten by Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park.
Villa started with many of their big guns despite having a crucial midweek match previously, as John Carew started as the long striker for the Birmingham club. In midfield, Young, Downing, Petrov, Albrighton and Nigel Reo-Coker started as the creative enforcers whilst at the back Dunne, Young, Warnock and Collins made up the defensive four. In goal for the Villains was their experienced campaigner, Brad Friedel.
As for Everton, Moyes started with Howard in goal. In front of the U.S international goalkeeper, Jagielka, Distin, Hibbert and Baines were trusted by the Scottish manager with their respective defensive duties. In midfield for the Merseyside Blues, Fellaini, Rodwell, Pienaar and Arteta aimed to control possession of the ball, whereas Cahill and Beckford played alongside each other in attack.
Before the kick-off, the match was termed as a crucial encounter by several experts for both the English clubs, who did not start the English Premier League season in the best of form. The first goal of the match came in the early stages of the half as Ashley Young spotted a clever inside run by Luke Young just outside of the Everton penalty area. Luke collected his namesake’s pass and curled the ball with his left foot into the top left corner of Howard’s goal in the 9th minute.
Richard Dunne’s tackle on Jermaine Beckford to stop the young strikers blitzing run through the centre of Villa’s defence earned the ex-Manchester City player the first yellow card of the night in the 12th minute of the match. In the 18th minute of the match, Everton came the closest in the first half to getting their equalizer as Steven Pienaar’s shot from the left side of midfield only found Villa’s right goal post.
For the rest of the first half, both the teams fashioned few a few goal-scoring chances between them; however, despite Everton’s domination of the possession in midfield, Villa were a goal up. After the second half started, Villa’s defender Collins became the second player to go into the referee’s book after his foul in the 60th minute of the match.
Following Collins, his teammate Albrighton was also shown the yellow card by the referee for his foul on Leighton Baines in the left side of Everton’s defence in the 63rd minute of the match. Everton and Aston Villa both stepped up the tempo in the 70th minute of the match, as both set of players realized that there wasn’t much time left in the match to push for another goal.
Everton started to dominate proceedings as the effects of Villa’s mid-week fixture started to become apparent on players like Reo Coker and Ashley Young along with John Carew. Both the teams started to play some astonishing end-to-end football in the last ten minutes of the match. In the 80th minute of the match, Stilian Petrov, Villa’s captain, went into the referee’s book after a shirt tug on Pienaar, which brought the South African international to the ground.
Despite Everton’s final push in the dying five minutes of the match to somehow salvage a point, the Toffees just didn’t have what it took to unlock the Villa defence, as the match ended with Villa ending their wretched run of form by grabbing a one goal to nil win over Everton. The man of the match was clearly Friedel, who kept Villa in the game through his terrific composure and defensive marshalling at the end of the match.
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