Aston Villa will feel like they dropped valuable points following their goalless draw against Manchester United on Sunday.
Both these teams went into this fixture in completely different frames of mind, with Erik ten Hag under severe pressure and Unai Emery riding a wave.
Manchester United let a 2-0 lead slip on Thursday night against Porto in the Europa League, only days after getting outclassed by Tottenham in the Premier League.
On the other hand, Villa were coming off a historic 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League and the mood was sky-high in B6.
But the performance on Sunday didn’t reflect that because it was a dogged, aggressive, offensively abject and a cagey goalless draw.
Before a ball was kicked, ten Hag made some interesting changes to his starting XI, including playing Jonny Evans alongside Harry Maguire at centre-back.
With Evans at the age of 36, if you were Ollie Watkins, then you would have been licking your lips before kick-off because this would have been food and drink for him.
But it wasn’t meant to be because Evans kept Villa’s star striker at bay, including stopping Jhon Duran from scoring when he came off the bench.
Not only did Manchester United win many of their defensive battles, but they also shut off the supply for Aston Villa’s attacking players to connect and make noise.
But Evans still acknowledged the difficulty his team went through and how ‘you never feel comfortable’ against Villa, as he told BBC Sport.
Jonny Evans delivers verdict on Aston Villa
“Fair play to Villa,” said Evans. “They’re good players and you never feel comfortable. You’ve always got to be on your toes and ready.”
Aston Villa papering over the cracks
On paper, it might read that Villa only have one defeat to their name in all competitions, which is pretty good going, but it is papering over a few cracks.
The performances, especially during the first half of matches, just aren’t there and the team will get hit hard if they sort things out.
More rotation is needed from using Ian Maatsen a lot more now and giving Lucas Digne a rest, pushing Duran to start and Emi Buendia must be thinking what he has done wrong given that he hasn’t come off the bench for the last two matches.
