Chelsea 0 – 2 Villa; Half expected

I just didn’t find time to write before the game I just couldn’t be arsed to write anything is the truth. I could have squeezed it in, but I find I’m falling asleep quite early on nowadays, hence my time needs to be prioritised, it’s as simple as that.
Yes, I should make the effort more, but that’s how it is. It’s Easter shutdown time and it’s always mega busy at work.

Anyway, I can hand on heart say I expected this result and I have witnesses to prove it’s how I was thinking, as I discussed the game with family prior to the kickoff.

I like Graham Potter. Apart from him being a Villa fan, he’s a good manager who plays the game in the right way and I think he’s been dealt a terrible hand with injuries. I really think Chelsea should stick with him, but think fan power might end up winning out.
My reasoning that we’d beat them today was because they are completely toothless in attack and just don’t look at all incisive.

And so it proved here. They created a boatload of chances, way more than was necessary to scare me to death; but I struggle to think of one that seriously threatened our goal. Having said that, Emi Martinez was excellent today and he just looked invincible and back to his best. Was he MOTM? Yes, probably, in a game where there were possibly a few contenders.

The interesting thing for me today is that we actually looked decidedly iffy at times in defence, giving the ball away as though we owed Chelsea some kind of favour, yet still managed to get a 2-0 win away from home.
I still don’t like this messing around at the back thing, as we invite the opposition to score, yet again we managed to keep a clean sheet.
It’s just alien to me, as the kind of mistakes we make should be punished by us conceding goals.
Yet we’re not.
Is this indicative of how poor our opposition is or is it really a typical indicator of how good our system is, in that it just grinds the opposition down because we’re just plain and simple, so hard to live with?
I’m inclined to think the Premier league is really poor quality, but strongly suspect I’m doing the current Aston Villa side a massive disservice.
Our record under Unai the great is almost peerless since his arrival and it surely can’t be a coincidence.
Which is fascinating, seeing as I don’t think we look particularly good.

That said, I do think our performance made this victory.
McGinn was outstanding and is starting to look like that £50 mill player again. Yes, I complained about him eventually, but was confident that he’d come back to his best. Would I take that £50 mill if offered it now? Tempting, but no, I think.

Many other players did well too. I have to say that, because how can you knock anyone when you win by two at the Bridge?
Mings and Konsa did well, as did Watkins, who worked his guts out and got a goal while still managing to look like a totally not natural striker.
Isn’t that something like 5 in his last seven away games or something? I know it is some similar impressive stat.

But the one who perplexed me most and summed Villa up, was Ramsey.
I thought his workrate and yardage was outstanding.
Yet found his final product to be absolute junk.
Normally, I’d be ripping him to pieces and slating him blind, but today I felt we could almost afford him being like that.
The strange thing is it’s the impression I’m getting with the whole side.
We don’t look very good at all, to my eyes overall, yet we quite simply achieve.

I watched most of the game on the Now TV channel, where Andy Townsend was co-commentator and he mentioned how hard we work off the ball. Couple that with the fact that the players know exactly whats expected of them and it would seem we’re onto a winner.

You can say some stats belie the truth, but points on the board are undeniable.
After what seems like months in eleventh place, we’re now up to ninth.
And looking good, from my perspective.

UTV!