Aston Villa Away Lost 1 – 0
The linesman who doesn’t know what offside is!
A Sunday kick off had spared us from the worst of Storm Bert but there was no escaping Storm Darragh in Birmingham where Harwood-Bellis returned, being replaced on the naughty step by Stephens, serving his second suspension of the season. Downes and Dibling were back to bolster the midfield, but how would Lumley, Wood and TH-B cope with the wind, the rain and the Villa? Not well when Wood and Lumley a mess of a ridiculous passing move deep in their own penalty box but they somehow escaped, unlike in the 24th minute when Wood and Harwood-Bellis got in each other’s way in trying to cope with the attentions of Durán and allowed the Columbian a run on goal which he found easy to convert as Lumley could only advance to no-mans-land in an attempt to close the raid down. That was effectively the game over, not because Villa were any good (they weren’t) but because Saints got stuck in another rut of passing for its own sake rather than making any headway towards an equaliser. Zero shots on target, with a mere four off, is fine if you don’t concede but it’s a disappointing way to go down when behind for over an hour and an expected goal stat of 0.44 sums it up as well – we’d have taken half a goal if that were possible. Aribo and Dibling did their best by trying the occasional run, the latter’s homage to Grealish’s former manor seeming to be to wear his socks even lower than usual, but all too often we looked content, or at least unable, to do nothing more than go back and recycle when approaching the final third of the pitch. Sugawara, quite wisely, is no longer trusted to defend in the Premier League but he might have helped in a right-side version of Manning’s role, as might Fraser, but instead we tried young Amo-Ameyaw and the experienced Brereton-Diáz. At least SA-A threatened something with a low cross into the danger area that probably accounted for most of the 0.44 E.G., but little came from BB-D, or anyone else for that matter.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
4. Flynn Downes, who was replaced by Brereton-Diáz – presumably to prevent a second caution.
7. Joe Aribo, who did his best.
33. Tyler Dibling, despite not really being at his best.
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