In which we barely stopped for breath.
The usual Monday morning casualty round-up is Boubacar Kamara out for two weeks, at least. Cardiff are taking 6,500 tickets for the cup, which is good going for a night match on TV that they’re going to lose.
Liverpool on Wednesday night and after Saturday there wasn’t much expected from our even more injury-hit team. Unai clearly decided that attack was the best form of defence, and with a defence like ours that wasn’t a bad idea. Marcus Rashford had a goal disallowed, then naturally we gave away a goal and even less was expected. Then the team decided to play a bit and when a free-kick wasn’t cleared properly Youri Tielemans was there to hit an equaliser. If that wasn’t enough, three minutes into first half stoppage time Lucas Digne’s cross was met inch-perfectly by Ollie Watkins. 2-1 and all was looking well.
All was looking a lot less well with half an hour to go, when a deflection gave Liverpool an equaliser they didn’t deserve and another honourable defeat started to look favourite. Again, though, Villa didn’t give in and continued to go for a winner which looked like it might have happened when Jacob Ramsey had a goal disallowed. Still, we got a draw and although we really need more than that to catch up with the top four/five, given what we were up against and the team we had to put out, full credit to them all.
In other news, the play-offs have finished for the clubs who weren’t as good as us in the Champions League. Whoever we’re going to play next round, it won’t be Manchester City. Oh dear. Not that the competition is in any way comparable to the Temu Trophy, or whatever it might be called this year, if the coverage on Birmingham Live is anything to go by.
The Champions League draw takes place and we’re off to Bruges again. Jhon Duran’s first three games for whoever he plays for now – two goals and a sending-off. That’s about par for the course. The latest on PSR is that we’re looking at a fine for breaking Uefa regulations. If you spend too much you have to pay more; that’s as logical as ever. The Bruges prices are announced and amazingly they haven’t gone up from the absolute bargain prices we were paying for the group stages. How they de it I just don’t know.
Chelsea rounded off a week of home games. Another case of picking whoever’s fit and another early goal conceded, which was made worse because Chelsea deserved it. A long ninety minutes seemed in store, although for the second time in four days going one down inspired the team and we started to have more of the play, even if there weren’t many chances. This was mainly due to the way the visitors were playing, which you could say was either effective or downright dirty, depending on whether or not you were the ref. Fortunately we were able to bring on a player who can’t be stopped when he’s on this form. Marcus Rashford is already shaping up to be irreplaceable and it wasn’t long before he put over another good ball that was bundled over the line by Marco Asensio. The officials did their best to disallow it but good old VAR, surely the greatest invention to hit football since shinpads.
Tyrone Mings went off for the restart, which made conspiracy theorists wonder if the lengthy discussions over whether to give the goal were connected with the ‘What time will a Villa defender go off injured?’ sweep. Lamare Bogarde came on and looked as impressive as he usually has all season. We continued to attack, Ezri Konsa kicked one off the line from a rare Chelsea counter and with a minute to go Rashford put the ball over again, Asensio shot again and the keeper had no chance. Another three points and the season’s hotting up nicely.
