Premier League: Aston Villa 1 West Brom 2
ASTON Victims 1, West Bromwich Albion 2.
Maybe Phil Dowd and his officials were not the only ones to play their cards wrong on Saturday. Perhaps Villa’s ten men did too.
Let’s get this straight, Villa were the victims of a shocking decision to dismiss Chris Herd. It knocked them out of their stride and was arguably the most crucial factor in this defeat.
But, instead of playing the victim card, they might have been better served playing the vigilante one and using their injustice as inspiration to try to right the wrong themselves.
Football, like life, is not always fair. But when the fates go against them, teams have a choice – they can either play the blame game or they can roll up their sleeves and do something about it.
Creating such a siege mentality is easier said than done. It requires strong footballers made of stern stuff to swallow disappointments like Herd’s controversial red card and channel their frustration as a positive force. Sadly, Alex McLeish doesn’t possess enough of them.
An angry and aggrieved Villa, wounded and wound up by the sense the world is against them, would have been preferable to the sulky claret and blues seemingly feeling sorry for themselves for most of the second half.
And losing their proud 32-year unbeaten home league record against the Baggies would have been much easier to bear had the Villa Park faithful at least seen McLeish’s men, even with a player down, attempt to take their frustrations out on their local rivals.
As it was, rather than being motivated by a persecution complex, Villa crumbled beneath a crisis of confidence. Perhaps understandably so, given that in Herd, the player they lost was the one the manager boldly included to bring some much-needed ‘legs’ to a Villa midfield hardly renowned for its all-action energy.
The 36th-minute departure of Herd didn’t just change the game, it changed Villa’s up-and-at-’em attitude.
Up until then, the claret and blues had aggressively implemented the boss’s game-plan of “getting in the faces” of their local foes.
As the tackles crunched in during a feisty start to the derby, Alan Hutton, in particular, was ferociously fired up and his challenge on Shane Long blurred the line between excitable and X-rated, subsequently ending the striker’s involvement as he hobbled out of the game with a knee injury.
Hutton himself was forced off just before the break with a head wound requiring stitches after an accidental aerial clash with team-mate Charles N’Zogbia.
But by then the struggling Scottish defender might already have been sent off for the lunge at Long which went unpunished by the ref, even though he was later booked for a lesser foul on the same player.
Villa know from the handling of their showpiece Carling Cup defeat to Manchester United at Wembley in 2010 that this Dowdy referee’s dodgy decisions are final.
Dowd awarded Villa a penalty for a foul on Gabby Agbonlahor without red-carding the aggressor in that match and did the same on Saturday, giving Ben Foster a Vidic-style reprieve.
Foster hauled down the Brummie goalgetter after hesitation by Steven Reid and the Albion keeper’s only punishment came in the form of Darren Bent’s 23rd-minute spot-kick, blasted inside the left post to put Villa in front.
Earlier, Bent had missed a sitter from eight yards after latching on to a mis-hit shot from Barry Bannan, who himself threatened with a rising volley.
Villa were edging it, but were not in complete control and Long’s lively replacement, Somen Tchoyi, tested Shay Given’s reflexes with a sharp spin and strike.
Then came the turning point.
