Aston Villa 0-0 Man United: Erik ten Hag’s side secure much-needed draw
Aston Villa 0-0 Man United: Erik ten Hag’s side secure much-needed draw. Manchester United put in a much-needed and resolute defensive performance at Villa Park on Sunday to earn a 0-0 draw vs the Villians.
The Red Devils, having conceded six goals in their last two games, were much more solid defensively against an in-form Aston Villa side on Sunday. They were so solid, in fact, that the game turned out to be rather dire one for neutrals.
While the clean sheet was a step in the right direction for Man Utd, it did ensure that the club have made their worst start ever to a Premier League campaign.
How the game unfolded;
As expected, Aston Villa were the much, much better team in the opening exchanges, taking advantage of the lack of mobility in Man Utd’s defensive set-up.
The home side came within a whisker of taking a deserved lead just eight minutes into the game when a neat bit of interplay between Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers culminated in the latter having a decent sight of goal. His subsequent effort, although well hit, fly just wide of the right post.
An injury to Ezri Konsa stunted Villa’s momentum soon after, with Man United cleverly opting to congest the middle of the park in order to nulify the influence of Rogers, Youri Tielemans and co.
Man United would be forced into defensive changes of their own at half-time. Both Harry Maguire and Noussair Mazraoui were hooked off due to suspected injury concerns, and were replaced by the duo of Victor Lindelof and the under-fire Matthijs de Ligt.
Despite the unwanted changes, the Red Devils started the second half well, creating their first half-chance of the game in the 48th minute. The chance would fall to Marcus Rashford who, after cutting in from the left flank, fired a powerful effort goal-ward which had to be tipped over the crossbar by Emi Martinez.
Rashford was then very, very lucky not to be sent off soon after. The wide forward left a lazy leg out to trip Leon Bailey on the right flank while already on a yellow card, and was rather fortunately given the benefit of the doubt by referee Rob Jones.
In the 67th minute of the game, we were finally treated to a big of genuine quality. Man Utd captain Bruno Fernandes curled a wonderful free kick over the Villa wall from 25-yards out, but was denied a goal by the crossbar.
After that effort on goal from Fernandes, not a lot else happened in truth. Villa had a lot of possession, but failed to do anything with it – regularly seeing crosses from the flank fly out for goal kicks or comfortably into the arms of Andre Onana.
In added time at the end of the game, Villa finally carved open a decent chance. Some clever play down the left flank culminated in the ball bundling it’s way across to Jaden Philogene-Bidace on the right of the penalty area. The Villa man’s subsequent effort on goal was fantastically well blocked by Diogo Dalot.
Man Utd fans perhaps feared the worst when they found that Erik ten Hag had opted to play the club’s two slowest centre-backs against one of the quickest strikers in the Premier League.
In the end, it proved to be a pretty damn good decision. The pair of Jonny Evans and Harry Maguire (Matthijs de Ligt in the second half), along with the midfield trio of Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo and Christian Eriksen were able overload the middle of the park and largely prevent Ross Barkley, Morgan Rogers and Youri Tielemans from having a creative impact on the game.
