Aston Villa 2, Wolves 2: Mat Kendrick's big match verdict
Mar 22 2010 By Mat Kendrick
A CARLING Cup final. An FA Cup semi-final. A Champions League challenge...
Martin O’Neill stopped short of boasting that he has gift-wrapped Villa’s exciting season with a gigantic bow and stuck a cherry on the top.
But the Villa boss, who sarcastically cupped his hand to his ear in response to the boos at the final whistle, was incredulous at the negativity from the stands.
Having secured two Wembley appearances and kept the club in contention for the top four O’Neill has got a decent enough point. Which is precisely what his team finished with after battling back for a draw against plucky rivals.
But O’Neill must realise that if Villa have serious pretensions of joining the Premier League elite they must be judged by the same standards as the other big boys.
For when it comes to great expectations, Charles Dickens would struggle to script the demands now being placed upon the claret and blues, even though the jeers were probably a sign of disappointment rather than a deliberate slight on the manager and his players.
While O’Neill is frustrated that Villa’s halcyon days of the early 1980s are forever being used as the benchmark against which his aspiring class of 2010 are measured, Wolves were happy to turn back the clock three decades.
And by making the most of their own determined display and a below-par performance from their hosts, Mick McCarthy’s men came within touching distance of their first Villa Park victory since 1980.
Still, they did leave with a share of the spoils for the only time in 30 years, which was a fair result for the 100th Brum-Black Country derby between these teams.
At one stage Villa had threatened to repeat the five-goal haul from their previous league home game against Burnley a month earlier.
But while O’Neill’s Champions League chasers started poorly and then recovered against the Clarets, it was role reversal against their latest survival-seeking guests.
With regular derby-day destroyer Gabby Agbonlahor kicking his heels on the sidelines with a foot injury, John Carew continued a late-season scoring streak which is a carbon copy of last year.
