Aston Villa ended a strong week by dropping points at home to Bournemouth in the Premier League on Saturday.
It was a frustrating afternoon for Unai Emery and his players because they didn’t provide that cutting edge and see past a very dangerous opponent.
Only the week before, Bournemouth beat Arsenal, so Aston Villa knew the threat Andoni Iraola’s side posed.
That’s why it was paramount for the Midlands outfit to put their good work to bed and it wasn’t until the 76th minute that Ross Barkley scored a deserved opening goal.
Villa then went into the final ten minutes with a slender lead and proceeded to play a long-ball tactic that, in the end, hurt them.
One of the big frustrations with this all is that the team played well, very well in fact, but only had one point to show for it all.
But at least, Iraola was understanding of that after the game and the dangers the Champions League side brought to the table.
Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers threat for Aston Villa against Bournemouth
Villa beat Bologna in the Champions League in midweek, with Jhon Duran starting the match, but he was benched for the Bournemouth match.
Ollie Watkins came back into the XI, but he will be bitterly disappointed that he didn’t get on the scoresheet, with Morgan Rogers also being subbed after an hour.
Iraola admitted after the match that Bournemouth ‘didn’t play well’ and how the opposition were ‘better than us’, as he told the Bournemouth Echo.
The Cherries boss added that the likes of Watkins and Rogers made life uncomfortable for his team and they had to do a lot to survive.
“I think we didn’t play well,” admitted Iraola. “I think they played better than us and we played more the game that they wanted to play, but I think we’ve competed really, really well.
“I think we’ve had especially at the beginning of the game, 15, 20 minutes where they were playing much better than us. I think we with the defenders, Mark [Travers] kept us in the game through that difficult period – I think we finished very strong with the subs. I think the subs have given us another rhythm, another energy.
“I think we started a little bit in between because we were not pressing high, but we were leaving a space in behind and we were not really covering each other. It was a matter of the timing of the runs they were making, they were obviously like they do, trying to separate these two against two against our centre backs with Watkins and Rogers, and we were surviving, but we were not comfortable at all.”
Watkins and Rogers’ stats for Aston Villa against Bournemouth
The fact that Rogers got taken off tells you everything you need to know about his performance, it was lacking that spark and intent.
Watkins got in some pretty good positions, but on several occasions, Bournemouth did very well to keep the ball away from him or the final ball from his teammates was just wayward.
In the end, the England international was rated 7.20 for his efforts and Rogers was rated just 6.07 by WhoScored.
| Shots | Dribbles | Key passes | Passing accuracy | Aerials won | Passes | Touches | Rating (Watkins) |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 66.7 | 2 | 12 | 24 | 7.20 |
| Shots | Passes | Key passes | Passing accuracy | Accurate long balls | Touches | Rating (Rogers) |
| 1 | 12 | 1 | 83.3 | 2 | 19 | 6.07 |
