Aston Villa 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 0

 This game saw John McGinn make his 300th appearance for Aston Villa and like most other people (although I would never admit it) saw this as an easy win for Villa. After a poor start to the season, Villa have been in some incredible form and we're up to 4th. Wolves on the other hand were routed to the bottom of the table on a measly 2 points.

It therefore came as no surprise that wolves main tactic was to defend in numbers and try and hit Villa on the break. At times this looked like it might work, as Wolves forced a few good saves from Emi Martinez. However, not to detract from Martinez's efforts, a number of these efforts were given offside, and fortunately one that beat him was to. I think that if we were still in the era where linesmen put their flag up straight away, a number of people wouldn't have convinced themselves that Wolves were in this game as much as they might have thought.

Villa had most of the play and most of the shots, but as we have seen of late, the players seem to overthink it when they get in the box, so there could have been more shots, more reactions in the box and ultimately more goals, if they can remedy this situation. With games against stronger teams coming up, this is something that needs to get sorted sooner rather than later.

Not surprisingly, the winner came from a goal from outside the box. On 67 minutes, John McGinn crossed the ball into Boubacar Kamara who shot from distance with a shot that beat the keeper. He doesn't score often, but this one was a classic. 

After taking the lead, Villa had their tails up and it felt like they were finally out going to release the shackles and put the Wolves to the sword. Wolves were also lucky to escape a red card that was sent to VAR for a bad foul on Kamara, that on the screen looked like it warranted a red. However, he stayed on the pitch and Villa couldn't make it a comfortable victory. Not a classic and it's always nice to see the gap become a chasm.








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