Well once again the match review headline descends on the lips of Aston Villa fans, reads “Aston Villa rue missed chances”.
Aston Villa yesterday travelled to Blackburn Rovers’ Ewood Park backed by approximately 3,000 fans, this is quite surreal to imagine sell out allocations in back to back away games in 7 days.Last weekend Aston Villa took 3,584 fans up to the northeast to Wigan Wanderers, but the two games have provided the same outcome.
Aston Villa travelled to Ewood Park in hope of being able to give them some breathing space away from the relegation zone. Aston Villa will feel more aggrieved following the way the 1-1 draw was achieved.
Villa secured their 12 draw of the Barclays Premier League 2011/2012 season with Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Ewood Park. Aston Vila took the lead midway in the first half of the game through Charles N’Zogbia, who was the beneficiary of Villa’s stand-in central defender Carlos Cuellar who broke from the midfield and coolly danced around the opposition players. Charles N’Zogbia hit a left-foot rocket into the roof of the Blackburn Rovers net.
Although Aston Villa had less possession over the 90 minutes, they managed to get 16 shots away but only found their way towards the Blackburn Rovers goal on 5 occasions. In the first half the majority of the game was played within the Blackburn Rovers half as Villa were resilient in their pursuit of the three points.
In the second-half Aston Villa had the tables turned on them with Blackburn Rovers penning them into their own half defending for most of the half and were rewarded by their constant attempts at the Aston Villa goal. Steve Kean made a substitution late on in the game and decided to bring on David Dunn. David Dunn managed to salvage a point for Rovers with a header in the 85th minute from the back post.
Blackburn Rovers were denied an equaliser a few moments earlier when Morten Gamst Pedersen hit a crisply shot on target but Shay Given came to Villa’s rescue. Shay Given had a quieter game compared to his opposite number player in the Blackburn goal only being forced to make 3 saves during the game and had to restart play on fewer times.
Alex McLeish made a late and final substitution of the game on the stroke of 90 minutes bringing Austrian striker Andreas Weimann who almost scored the winner with a shot which was blocked by Blackburn’s Bradley Orr’s.
Aston Villa managed to complete 252 passes compared to their attempted 367 achieving a pass completion percentage of 69% this was 2% less than Blackburn Rovers. Rovers attempted 432 passes but only managed to find the intended targets on 307 occasions giving them a pass completion percentage of 71%.
More stats on page 2…
