Well, I suppose if you were a neutral that would be classed as a great game as the play swung backwards and forwards.
But it certainly wasn’t for me.
We were comfortable when we went 2-0 up, until Chester got sent off for clipping the attacker’s heel. It was a soft penalty award and I thought the red card was extremely harsh, but that’s the way it goes.
But that’s all of the allowable mitigation that Bruce gets from me.
We can all recall game where the side with eleven players immediately gain momentum, but just as equally we’ve seen sides with 10 players go on to nearly win games too.
Through most of the second half we looked poor and it was odds on that once Preston had got their first goal, they’d get the equaliser.
And likewise, it looked certain that they’d get a third.
It looked all over when they did and there was a lot of booing and chants of “sacked in the morning” from the fans.
Fair play though and the lads pulled the equaliser back, via a scrabbled goal from Bolasie, which sent Villa into the ascendancy for the last few minutes.
An intentional push gave Villa literally a last kick penalty, which for some reason Whelan took.
I don’t understand why he took it, unless no-one wanted to.
Whatever, he failed to score what would have been a memorable goal looking back.
It would have massively hidden the underlying problems we have as a team too, though.
And while I massively wanted the win, a little part of me wonders if today’s draw is just pushing closer to the sack?
If we’d lost today, the baying from the fans afterwards would probably have made the TV news.
But with us equalising and missing that last-minute pen, the fans (myself included) just seemed somewhat bamboozled and as far as I could tell, complaints were temporarily forgotten about.
I said in the last post that anything less than a win was unacceptable and I still think that holds true.
Millwall next, who I suspect will prove tougher.
Lose that and I’d expect to see Bruce sacked immediately after the game.
Whatever, he has to go and tonight’s game changes nothing.