The Premier League match between Aston Villa and Stoke City at Villa Park on Saturday Dec 19 2000.
A good week for Aston Villa ended with a third consecutive victory and their stock rising even further as gate crashers into the Premier League’s elite party.
The defeat of Stoke City represented an eighth game unbeaten for Martin O’Neill’s side and a fourth game without conceding a goal although his team’s usual panache was absent as Villa consolidated their third place position in the league.
Substitute John Carew, who had replaced the injured Emile Heskey in the first half, scored the deciding goal that was crafted from the game’s most fluent move just after the hour mark.
Full back Luke Young and Stewart Downing wove a zigzag pattern across the width of the pitch before Ashley Young delivered a trademark centre from the right deep into the six yard box where the big Norway centre forward met it with a powerful header beyond his Thomas Sorensen.
The Stoke goalkeeper had earlier denied Stiliyan Petrov and Gabriel Agbonlahor with a double save during what was a listless opening 45 minutes but Stoke could claim that their cause was hindered by referee Lee Probert who disallowed Mamady Sibide’s headed effort at the far post for a push on Stephen Warnock although there appeared minimal contact as the Stoke player climbed to convert Matthew Etherington’s centre.
Indeed Stoke seemed more likely to break the deadlock as they increased the tempo after the interval and only some errant finishing from their Turkey forward Tuncay allied to dogged Villa defending maintained the status quo.
In fact Etherington spurned a late chance for an equaliser as he skewed a Dean Whitehead pass wide after Sibide had failed to make initial contact with the ball as Stoke rallied.
However, Steve Sidwell had an opportunity to double the advantage with time running out, the midfield player’s 20-yard shot arrowing narrowly wide of the left hand post when Agbonlahor had teed him up on the edge of the penalty area.
No comments:
Post a Comment