I was at the game and after 46 minutes I had composed my piece for the blog "It was a nice day at Villa Park, mild and dry with some sun and we lost 4-0." Short and sweet, then something happened in a 9-minute spell that made me decide to start again with the blog. Although we were not great in the first half it was a vast improvement over how we played against Brighton, we were trying to score and Mbeumo had a free-kick that hit the side netting, although standing (I'm not sure why we were standing and not sitting for the whole of the game) at the other end of the stadium we initially thought it had gone in. Ajer made a fantastic block then in the 38th minute Watkins got in a header that Flekken pushed on to the post only for it to just go over the line to give Villa the lead. Within a minute of the restart Rogers waltzed past one defender then hit a good shot that Flekken had no chance with. 2-0 down after 46 minutes and it looked likely that they would get more. Then something happened down our left side - Reguilon pushed forward and we started to attack them. A Reguilon cross from the left was headed by Wissa (away from goal), Damsgaard put it back into the goal area and Zanka scored. Standing at that end it looked as though there must have been a deflection because I saw the ball hit Zanka and then ... it was in the net. Watching it later on TV, Zanka meant to hit the ball with his right foot but it hit his left standing leg and went in. He could have practiced that in training for 20 years and it would never have happened. Who cares as we had a goal back. Then for the next 9 minutes it went crazy. Again attacking down the left, a Reguilon cross saw Mbeumo acrobatically hook it into the net for our equaliser. Then a great crossfield ball from Jensen found Reguilon on the left and his cross found an unmarked Wissa to tap in to give us the lead! But in the 76th minute the key moment happened when I realised that we would hang on to win the game. Reguilon had been injured a few minutes earlier and was substituted. Lewis-Potter (a left winger) had to play left back and the Villa manager cleverly doubled up the attackers on their right side and they were threatening to score every time the ball went to them. Numerous deep crosses came in that we could not deal with, then in the 80th minute another cross (but this time deflected) evaded Flekken (although he probably should have got a hand to it) and Watkins leapt highest to score his second and their equaliser. We had 8 minutes of added on time but fortunately we held out for the draw and the point. Now three draws in a week. Perhaps it would have been better beating Man U, drawing with Brighton and losing to Villa as we would have had an extra point. Yet another must win game next Saturday, home to Sheffield United.
