Mixed results for Villa’s rivals

February 2, 2009 by betfair.ie
Filed under: Aston Villa, Match Reports 

After the Wigan game Martin O’Neill said ‘we just couldn’t force the ball over the line’ and never has that been so true! On another occasion the boys in Claret and Blue would have hammered the Latics but on the day it just wasn’t too be.

Luke Young may have said earlier in the week that he feels Villa have a chance at winning the title, in terms of current league standings that is true but a more realistic ambition is Champions League qualification and the draw at Wigan didn’t hurt as much as it could.  I’m going to review the games involving the teams around the Villa and see how the competition is performing.

I’ll start with Manchester United and Everton.  United have looked pretty good over the last few weeks without really stepping it up a gear (execpt against the Baggies of course).  The game against Everton was a pretty dire affair in truth and United had to rely on a penalty to win it.  Fergie’s side may be top of the table but they don’t look as good yet as they did last season but if they find that kind of form again I doubt anyone will catch them.  Everton are still in with an outside shout at Champions League qualification (though why they bother I’ve no idea, so good in the league yet so poor in Europe!).  I was quite impressed with Everton to be honest, aside from a penalty they didn’t really need to concede they defended pretty well and when they did get the chance to break they moved forward quickly and with purpose.  Everton will keep pushing but ultimately I think the current top five are all better than them and it would be a big ask for them to finish in the top-four.

Liverpool and Chelsea tried as hard as they could to produce a 0-0 but then Torres popped up with two in the dying stages.  A draw would have been the better result really I suppose but Chelsea getting beat was no bad thing.  The Stamford Bridge side have slipped up a lot recently and they are probably the team in the top three that Villa are most likely to overtake.  Liverpool showed signs of their early season form at points but Chelsea looked poor, the most dangerous thing about them was their challenges.  Lampard didn’t deserve a red card though, ok his studs were showing and by the letter of the law blah blah blah, but it wasn’t dangerous and he was unlucky.  Bosingwa’s ‘challenge’ (assault??) on Benayoun did deserve a red though, I’m fairly confident the FA will hand him a suspension after that anyway even if Mike Riley missed it.  All in all the best thing about this tie was Ca$hley Cole giving the ball to Torres for the first goal.

Arsenal played out a 0-0 draw with West Ham and they really are a side in trouble.  They’ve probably already accepted defeat in the race for the title, privately if not publicly, and it’s going to be hard for them to break back into the top four.  Despite absolutely hammering West Ham they just couldn’t score.  The Wigan game was a bit of an anomaly for Villa but this is becoming a regular occurrence for Arsenal now and they need to start winning soon to keep their season on track.  Arsenal started with Nicklas Bendtner, something a top side would never want to do, and that shows the trouble they are in up front.  The Gunners are a bit like a toothless lion that can still hunt but can’t finish it’s prey off, it looks like they’re not going to get Arshavin now either and with Van Persie and Adebayor not performing they could really do with a decent striker.

The Champions League push is well and truly on now and with Manchester United being the only real ‘form side’ of the usual suspects it is still all to play for as Villa enter the ‘business end’ of the season.

Written by Gareth Freeman, a sports writer who writes about football sports betting for betfair.


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