Aston Villa ended up having to cling on to take a point away at Ipswich Town in front of a fired up Portman Road.
Unai Emery watched on as his Aston Villa players were embroiled in a real battle against Ipswich, with the high winds only adding to the difficulty in a 2-2 draw.
Ipswich took the lead through Liam Delap early on before goals from Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins flipped the game on its head before half-time.
Ipswich refused to give up, though, and equalised through Delap’s second of the match as he sprung the offside trap before tricking his way past Diego Carlos and firing past Emi Martinez.
It was a disappointing afternoon for Villa as they could have gone second in the league with a win, but in the end they were perhaps fortunate to hang on for a point against newly-promoted opposition.
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Aston Villa winger Leon Bailey compared to David Beckham
Watkins and Rogers combined well for Rogers’ 15th-minute goal as the pair played a one-two inside the box before Rogers worked half a yard of space and fired into the corner.
However, Villa’s second was as old-fashioned as they come as Leon Bailey got to the byline before whipping in a cross for Watkins to head past the Ipswich goalkeeper.
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Bailey loves to cut in on his stronger left foot when playing on the right wing but he opted to use his right on this occasion and it paid off as he showed he still has real quality on his weaker side.
Scott Minto was left very impressed by Bailey’s assist and compared the delivery to none other than David Beckham whilst on punditry duty for TalkSPORT as he said: “Wonderful ball from Leon Bailey. That’s with his right foot. That was Beckham-like. It really was.”
Bailey having a slow start to Aston Villa season
Villa paid £30 million to sign Bailey from Bayer Leverkusen in 2021 and he has really kicked on since the arrival of Emery as manager in late 2022.
However, the Jamaican winger has endured a slow start to the new season with the assist against Ipswich his second in six league matches.
Bailey is also yet to score in the new campaign and was relatively anonymous aside from his cross for Watkins’ goal on Sunday.
Whilst Rogers is excelling in the second striker role, the fact Villa lost 19 goal contributions from last season when they sold Moussa Diaby in the summer means they need Bailey to step up to help replace those goals and assist.
Emery will be confident the 27-year-old is capable of doing just that, but will hope it starts sooner rather than later.
