Aston Villa conceded a 96th-minute goal and proceeded to record a 1-1 draw against Bournemouth on Saturday.
It was a gut-wrenching ending by Aston Villa and it’s a frustrating set of dropped points, but it was coming, especially given how the final ten minutes panned out.
In what was a dominant first half, John McGinn had a goal ruled out by VAR after it was ruled that the ball had gone out of play just before Ollie Watkins fed the ball to his skipper.
Unai Emery would have been delighted with the performance, especially the first 30 minutes, but it lacked the goal, and in truth, it proved to be costly.
Villa had come off the back of beating Bologna in the Champions League in midweek, so the mood was high and it showed, aside from the cutting edge.
Yes, Ross Barkley came off the bench to open the scoring, but ill-discipline, a long ball tactic and giving away foul after foul in the same area resulted in the dropped points.
That’s why there were several ‘unhappy’ players after the full-time whistle.
John McGinn, Ross Barkley and Matty Cash ‘unhappy’ after Aston Villa’s draw against Bournemouth
Many will ask ‘who was marking Evanilson?’ because he was free as a bird and it showed as his header beat a helpless Emi Martinez in between the sticks.
Villa had many issues with their defensive set-pieces last season and had been doing fairly well during this campaign.
But that Evanilson goal was a shot in the arm, with reporter Jacob Tanswell sharing on Twitter that McGinn was in ‘deep conversation’ with Matty Cash and Barkley after the game.
It was reported that all three players looked ‘unhappy’ and why wouldn’t you be after an ending like that?!
“John McGinn deep in conversation with Barkley and Cash after,” wrote Tanswell on Twitter. “Both Barkley and Cash had conceded fouls in the final minutes down the right and all three unhappy.”
What Unai Emery said about Aston Villa conceding a late goal against Bournemouth?
The big positive about Villa conceding in such a manner is that you know the manager isn’t going to overreact and remain calm.
The strange thing is that you want Villa to repeat that type of performance, but just finish things off next time around.
Emery told the Independent after the match that ‘we deserved the win’ but his players ‘didn’t control’ the match as he would have liked towards the end.
“We needed the defence concentrating 100 per cent like we usually were but they scored and we are frustrated because we deserved to win, but there is still work to do,” said Emery.
“When you are 1-0 up in the last minute, we didn’t control like we needed and this is one thing we have to learn.”
