Non-thriller at the Villa! Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle.

toonsy

Collins celebrates the only goal of the game.
Newcastle succumbed to defeat at Villa Park this afternoon in a match that saw Aston Villa ease their relegation fears and move further away from the dreaded drop zone.

A very thin on the ground Newcastle United was on show for all to see as absences through suspension and injury took their toll and forced Alan Pardew into handing Nile Ranger his first Premier League start whilst Fabricio Coloccini was moved into a more advanced role in midfield. In contrast, Villa’s full strength squad enabled their under-pressure manager, Gerard Houllier, to take his pick of who to play.

You could tell that the home fans were feeling anxious as you could hear a pin drop in the Villa end at times. Newcastle capitalised on that and started brightly with debutant Nile Ranger proving to be a handful for Richard Dunne and James Collins in the Villa defence. In fact Ranger had a couple of half chances which he could have done better with, but inbetween those chances Joey Barton should have given Newcastle the lead.

Some fine work down the left from Jonas Gutierrez and Jose Enrique allowed the Spaniard to cross into the box from the byline. The cross cleared everyone in the middle of the box but managed to find an onrushing Joey Barton at the back post who headed the ball goalwards only to see his effort spoon harmlessly over the bar.

The game ebbed and flowed with neither side really being on top. Mike Williamson received a booking for cleaning out Gabby Agbonlahor, and seconds Joey Barton gave away a free-kick after tripping Ashley Young. It was from that free-kick that the home side took the lead as Young curled the ball into the box for James Collins to glance into Steve Harper’s bottom right hand corner.

That goal eased the pressure on Aston Villa and they began to look more assured on the ball. Indeed the home side could have made it two had Darren Bent kept his eye on Stewart Downing’s cross and had the Assistant Referee not been kind and chalked off a Darren Bent goal for offside. I’ve seen the replays and I’m still not convinced it was offside.

That was it for the first-half however as both sides looked that little bit off form. Newcastle never really created much and Villa looked nervous, and that theme continued in the second half.

Without creating too much themselves, Villa still had the better of the early exchanges. Steven Taylor, who had a poor game and couldn’t even head the ball at one stage, flattened Darren Bent in the centre circle before flattening him again in the penalty box. Fortunately Stuart Atwell decided against awarding the penalty.

Taylor was withdrawn not long after that and was replaced with another Taylor – Ryan – as Newcastle looked to create something for the strikers who had been starved of service all afternoon as the nerves returned to the Villa Park stands.

The game just ticked along really with not much happening in front of goal for either side. There was a few tasty challenges but not much else. Ranger was replaced with Shefki Kuqi for the last ten minutes, but he was also starved of service and, as a result of that, failed to make any real impact.

Lovenkrands had about the best chance of the second-half in the final couple of minutes but he was unable to direct Danny Guthrie’s deep cross towards Brad Friedel’s bottom corner and the American saved comfortably.

Joey Barton had been a booking waiting to happen all afternoon as he continued from his gobbing off in the press during the week by gobbing off at the referee at every opportunity, and that booking arrived as injury time commenced. Five minutes were signalled, and despite much hiffing and puffing Newcastle were unable to create that chance or grab that equaliser.

Full-time: Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle.

We simply had too many off colour performances today. Steven Taylor was poor, as was Jose Enrique whilst Joey Barton had a stinker having been given Kevin Nolan’s armband. We never really created anything today, which is why we didn’t have many chances to score. We could have had the best striker in the world wearing our white away kit today, but he wouldn’t have been able to do much as the service just wasn’t there.

Aston Villa: Brad Friedel, Kyle Walker, James Collins, Richard Dunne, Luke Young, Stewart Downing, Stiliyan Petrov, Jean Makoun, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Ashley Young, Darren Bent.

Subs: Andy Marshall, Ciaran Clark, Carlos Cuellar, Nigel Reo-Coker, Robert Pires, Marc Albrighton, Emile Heskey.

Newcastle: Steve Harper, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Steven Taylor, Jose Enrique, Joey Barton, Danny Guthrie, Fabricio Coloccini, Jonas Gutierrez, Nile Ranger, Peter Lovenkrands.

Subs: Tim Krul, Shane Ferguson, James Tavernier, Michael Richardson, Ryan Taylor, Ryan Donaldson, Shefki Kuqi.

Referee: Stuart Atwell.

Attendance: 37,090.

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

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136 thoughts on “Non-thriller at the Villa! Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle.”

  1. Army, ffs mate we do stick through them thick and thin. That’s why we are the 4th highest crowds in the UK. If we didn’t we would be boro.

    The fact is, a hell of a lot of players on that pitch get paid more in a week than I do in a year, yet I still spend money on supporting them and some fans spend 41 quid on a ticket to go watch them. I agree that in the grand scheme of things we are doing okay, but if fans want to have a rant about a woeful display like that then so be it. We were ***** and I can sit and point out where we have been good this season, but i will also be upset when they let us down.

    Can you honestly say the players on that field gave 100% TODAY (not yesterday, not vs Sunderland but TODAY?) nah you can’t because they didnt. As I said before, Villa were awful, against a good team it would have been a total hammering.

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  4. Jobey he has a smile on his face again 😆
    Moreno I agree there is nowt wrong with having a rant and rave when the players dont give 100% but I think its unfair that 1 or 2 of the players today get picked out to be crucified, one was a Kid getting his 1st ever start in the prem I just think we as Fans are overly hard on our younguns

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  7. well moreno its not just me that agrees with what i said bonny lad , at the end of the day we all have our own say and i dont think ranting gets you anywhere !!

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  8. BD, totally agree mate, daint agree with picking out indivlduals today.

    I thought they were ***** as a team and collective!

    Problem with me (and no doubt most on here) is that I look forward to it so much. I count down the days then minutes till we kick off. When we give that over 90 minutes it gets me.

    I don’t agree with slaughtering certain players, never have. Even my disdain at Loven in the past hasn’t been directed at him, it’s been directed at the manager for picking him.

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  10. Army, you haven’t even seen half a rant from me yet mate 😉 that was just a murmour of discontent 😉

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  11. Moreno I have always said I would prefer a team of average players that give 100% over a team full of superstars that just go through the motions 😀

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  15. It seems circumstance dictates what we expect from players?

    We are effectively safe, playing a good team away from home, so it fine these players on 50k a week put in a sub standard performance. Let’s be honest we are top table when ‘people’ thought we would go down… Sorry it’s bollocks.

    If that was last day of the season and that game decided whether we were champions of the league or relegated, would you be happy with that performance? Would you *****. My point is that every single game should be played to win and today we looked like (as Dave put it) going through the motions. We, as fans, have a right to feel aggrieved.

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  16. Aye spence id rather have a 7 bed room house a mercedes , 6ft blonde swedish lass etc ,

    But that wont happen either

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  23. Hi Big Dave yes watching the golf. Tiger was immense the front nine. Poor Rory looks like nerves getting the btter of him, but he’s still hanging in there. Should be a close finish

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  25. Ah, well, this sort of thing happens. We’ll be safe enough.

    What this game shows up is our lack of depth. We don’t have people to come in and change games when the senior players aren’t performing. I think we need 5 first teamers to replace non-players like Routledge, Smith, Campbell, Kuqi and Carroll. With Ireland, Gosling and HBA back, and holding on to you-know-who, we should have a reasonable squad next season.

    And add a young ‘un or three.

    I can’t see us getting that many, though.

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  26. Batty take it easy 😉
    Toonsy 😉
    Deb Tiger has been playing well and Rory is falling apart atm 😯 I would like him to win as he represents Norn Iron 😉

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  27. Barton has ended up looking a complete and utter k*** this week. After all his grandstanding in the press he has ended up looking a right idiot. What was he thinking of

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  28. Me too Dave. Seems a nice kid, by all accounts fame hasn’t got to him, still hangs round with old school mates etc. Sadly not looking to good for him at the minute but still a way to go so fingers crossed

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  29. Deb – Is that really you 😯

    I’ve never known you get irate like that before.

    Deb is the new head of .co.uk security by the way 😉

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  30. Toonsy – yep it’s me. Don’t get mad that often – did with a certain .orger a few times as you know. Have stuck up for Joey a lot, but I think he has let himself and us down this week. Don’t know who is advising him with his PR stuff but it’s all turned into a bit of a disaster for him and don’t know whether it’s all that which came back to haunt him today but he wasn’t a happy bunny, in fact he was a right pain in the arsenal

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  32. I agree. Don;t get me wrong, Barton has been great, but he had a real chance to show off and back his mouth up after the attention he got.

    He blew that today and now he’ll have to work twice as hard again to get that chance again in my opinion

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  35. Dave – I didn’t mean was it someone pretending to be Deb you div.

    I’m just shocked as I don’t think I’ve ever seen Deb swear 😯

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  39. Dave – think your boy has imploded. Looks like it’s all over for him now.

    Toonsy – LOL, you haven’t heard my when watching the Toon, but you’re right, normally i dont tend to swear very much, just not my beef. Was frowned upon when I was growing up so it’s just stuck with me

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  40. Deb – I was brought up not to swear but obviously something went wrong somewhere 😆

    I blame NUFC 👿

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  47. Dave yes he has. What a shame. Don’t know if the occassion just got too much for him.

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  50. well fat lampard scored his goal, he dosent have the vision of Gerrard, He needs to stay on his feet and he cant take it past a man like wilshre basicly savage is being a kunt about the comments he made.

    oh also that rugby like tackle by Petrov was ok because he made them comments.

    Hes judging him on todays peformence.

    Basiclly ide say his rep made it worst!

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  57. his bottle job was worse than that of Arsenal (Arseholes) at SJP when Super Cheick Tiote silenced them and sent them home with their heads between their legs!

    Love writing that!

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  60. Awful performance, was it the team or the manager?
    Barton could at least bring a more positive motivation to the team
    Jonas had some nice passing but low determination
    Colocini in an unfamiliar position – not good at all
    Simpson can’t do much.
    Ranger in my opinion was underperformed, lacking in every skill a striker should have, can’t hold up, can’t run, I was wondering the whole time why isn’t he substituted, we might had a better chance with another man playing in midfield.
    And lovenkrand, well, who else do we got that can replace him? Better stick with him for now.

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  61. Next game we have Ireland, Tiote, Ameobi, Campbell and Perch all available for selection and then for game after Nolan too and 4 of them are big players for us. I want to see vs Man Utd;

    Harper
    Simpson Williamson Coloccini Enrique
    Barton Ireland Tiote Jonas
    Ameobi Lovenkrands.

    Subs; Krul, S.Taylor, R.Taylor, Ferguson, Guthrie, Ranger, Kuqi.

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