Right, I’m off. Here’s Peter Lansley’s match report from Villa Park. Bye!
The loss of Tyrone Mings to another potentially serious knee injury overshadowed this niggly draw as Aston Villa failed to win for the sixth successive league game after a midweek Champions League tie.
The former Villa captain, only three months after returning from the second ACL injury of his career, looks certain to miss this Wednesday’s crucial European game here against Celtic. With Pau Torres still injured and Diego Carlos just transferred to Fenerbahce, they are light in this position.
Mings left the field in tears after damaging his left knee in a fair tackle by Mohammed Kudus eight minutes before half-time. West Ham, who lost here in the FA Cup in Graham Potter’s first game in charge three weeks ago, capitalised on Villa’s strange decision to play the diminutive Lucas Digne at centre-back thereon in and deserved their headed equaliser from Emerson.
Much more here:
Unai Emery is less pleased, partly about speculation over the future of Jhon Duran – “In this moment they are not helping us to focus 100%. But Jhon Duran is our player and I want him here with us” – and partly because his side gave up a lead and failed to win at home:
I missed a little bit fresh legs. They created not many clear chances, but we didn’t deserve to win. I think the result is fair. We are trying to get another centre-back. I accept today the result. We have to keep going, to continue building the team, trying to learn, to introduce new players with our structure. Try as well to manage the players, to be successful in our way but using players, trying to be competitive like usually we are doing.
Graham Potter is also pretty happy:
Really positive performance. Apart from the first 15 minutes we attacked well, played with personality, effort, created some chances in the second half and probably a little disappointed to come away with a point. We struggled at the start. At half-time we just wanted to be a little bit more aggressive in wide positions, which I thought the boys did. Generally I thought our performance was really positive.
We’re just trying to find a solution. We pressed high when we could, we were aggressive when we could. Lots of things we’ve been working on we saw some positive steps but we’ve still got a long way to go and a lot to improve.
Emerson Palmieri, scorer of the equaliser, is pleased:
I think we did very well, especially in the second half. Of course in the first 10, 15 minutes we suffered a bit. After we started to play with confidence and in the second half we showed our character and we fought to win this game. I’m happy for the goal, and happy for the performance as well. Now let’s see if I can score more.
Lucas Paqueta is named player of the match. He says he doesn’t know how serious his injury is – “I have to check with the doctor” – and that he wasn’t really satisfied with his performance:
I think I can do better. Today I had three opportunities to score and I didn’t score. So I’m still working. It’s a new position for me. I try to do my best to help the team.
West Ham won 0.79-1.52 on xG, for what it’s worth, and had more touches in the opposition box and more passes in the final third.
“I reckon its been more black and blue than claret and blue today,” says Dean Kinsella. I don’t think it was that bad, though it threatened to go completely off the rails towards the end of the first half. Five yellow cards is a respectable haul, really, though perhaps there might have been a couple more. And the last 20 minutes or so, when both teams did their very best to win the game, was really quite fun.
That point takes West Ham above Manchester United, at least for a couple of hours, and into 13th place. Villa remain eighth, three points ahead of Brighton in ninth and three (plus a whole lot of goal difference) behind Bournemouth in seventh.
Injury update: Mings watched most of the second half from the bench and Villa are apparently optimistic that his injury is not serious. Paqueta limps straight off the pitch and down the tunnel at the end of the game.
Final score: Aston Villa 1-1 West Ham United
90+9 mins: And that’s yer lot! An excellent second half, and honours even.
Updated
90+9 mins: Ings’ deflected shot is saved but not held by Martinez, and Soucek gets onto the rebound and gives it to Paqueta, still on the pitch but very clearly limping, who turns it in, but four West Ham players were offside as Ings took his shot and Soucek was one of them.
90+9 mins: West Ham have it in the net, but Soucek was offside in the build-up!
90+7 mins: Guido Rodriguez comes on for Kudus, as West Ham prepare for a free kick in their own half, which Areola will take.
90+5 mins: A replay of that Paqueta chance shows Digne pretty clearly grab his shirt and give it a tug at the crucial moment. Jamie Carragher on commentary thinks it’s obviously not a penalty, but I’m not so sure – looks like a foul to me, and potentially a goal-saving one.
90+4 mins: The ball breaks ahead of Paqueta, bursting out of his own half, but he pulls up as he tries to sprint towards it, and clutches his groin.
90+3 mins: Almost a chance for West Ham! A long diagonal from the left finds Soucek, who nods down to Paqueta, who controls with his chest and attempts some kind of rubber-limbed volley manoeuvre that completely misses the ball.
90+2 mins: A fabulous ball from Tielemans releases both a bit of pressure and Maatsen on the left, but Wan-Bissaka gets back to nick it away from him.
Updated
90+1 mins: There’ll be seven minutes of stoppage time, give or take. Both teams’ fans greet the fourth official’s board with a roar.
89 mins: Alvarez is going off now, but it’s a substitution rather than a red card. Andy Irving comes on.
87 mins: Edson Alvarez, already on the booking, barges into Kamara in midfield and is very lucky to stay on the pitch.
86 mins: From the corner it’s not so much that Kilman heads the ball as the ball heads Kilman, who is at the far post, well placed, but seems to be looking the wrong way. It bounces wide.
85 mins: Paqueta backheels to Coufal on the right, and his low centre is turned behind for a corner.
82 mins: Wan-Bissaka crosses and it bounces through to Ings, who chests down and half-volleys just wide. As the first half ended it felt like both teams were mainly trying to get opponents sent off. Now they’re both trying to win a game of football, and it’s quite the improvement.
82 mins: Duran is passed into the left side of the area, but it’s a bit strong and the only way for him to reach it before Kilman is by sliding at it and losing control by doing so. Goal kick.
81 mins: Rob Smyth’s Fulham v Manchester United liveblog is already cranking into gear, if you fancy a bit of that.
80 mins: Villa’s first attack for a while ends with Maatsen crossing into touch from the left wing.
77 mins: Chance! The free-kick is half-cleared to the other side of goal from where Wan-Bissaka crosses with his left and Soucek, beyond the far post, tries to loop a header back across goal but it doesn’t dip enough, and goes over. West Ham are dominating this now, and have admirably turned around a game they started miserably.
76 mins: Digne’s back-pass plays Martinez into trouble, and a few panicked moments later West Ham have a free-kick on the left and bring up the big guys.
74 mins: And some subs for West Ham who, with the scent of potential victory filling their nostrils, bring Emerson and Carlos Soler off and Danny Ings and Oliver Scarles on.
72 mins: A couple more subs for the home side. Morgan Rogers has had a frustrating game, and he and Jacob Ramsey go off while Emi Buendia and John McGinn come on.
GOAL! Aston VIlla 1-1 West Ham (Emerson, 70 mins)
An equaliser! It’s a peach of a ball from Alvarez on the right, and Emerson is unmarked at the back post to head back across goal and in!
Updated
68 mins: But Alvarez’s next involvement ends in a booking: it looks like he’s going to lose the ball to Dhuran, so he falls on top of it and grabs it with both hands. Under the laws of the game that kind of behaviour is frowned upon.
67 mins: Alvarez gets back to take the ball off Rogers as he tries to get it onto his right foot in the penalty area.
66 mins: Malen, fed by Cash, has a shot from the edge of the area. It’s straight at Areola, though.
66 mins: A couple of substitutions for Villa: Watkins and Bailey go off, Jhon Duran and Donyell Malen come on.
64 mins: Rogers, who’se had an ineffective game, also goes into the book for an overenthusiastic midfield challenge.
63 mins: West Ham hassle and hound the home side as they try to play the ball out of defence, and when it looks like they’ve finally done so Soucek brings down Kamara, and is booked.
Updated
61 mins: A strong start to the half for West Ham, and they nearly capitalise! Martinez comes to claim a cross but crashes into Cash and spills it. It falls to Carlos Soler, who takes it past the keeper and shoots from an acute angle, but Konsa gets back to clear it off the line!
58 mins: It’s a better spot for a left-foot shot than one with the right, and eventually Digne takes it, and scoops it over the bar.
56 mins: Villa run down the other end and win a free-kick a foot or two outside West Ham’s penalty area. There’s a delay while six (six!) Villa players huddle to discuss what to do with it.
55 mins: Another chance! Coufal crosses from the right this time, and it comes to Emerson at the far post but he doesn’t get clean contact on it, and it deflects to Martinez.
53 mins: Chance for West Ham! Wan-Bissaka crosses from the right, it’s tapped back infield to Paqueta, and he controls, spins, and spears his shot wide!
51 mins: The first five minutes of this half was almost entirely stoppage.
50 mins: Both players receive a bit of treatment. Play restarts with a drop ball while Kilman is off the field for his post-treamtent time-out, in which time Villa win but don’t quite take a corner.
48 mins: Watkins and Kilman both go for the same header, and they both end up on the ground as well.
47 mins: Turns out Digne is OK, to nobody’s great surprise.
46 mins: It’s Lucas Digne. It looks like Paqueta trod on his foot, or at least some of his foot.
46 mins: Peeeeep! Play restarts, and it takes precisely nine seconds for someone to throw himself to the ground screaming.
The players are back out and they’re about to play more football!
“We aren’t out of this by long chalk,” trills Ian Sargeant. That’s the spirit! “Villa look affected by the Mings injury and if we can sneak one back (Soucek from a set piece? ) we could be in here.
Not a fan of Paqueta hitting the ground so often. That was naughty at the free kick. My mind goes back to the same fixture at Upton park in the 80s. Peter Withe and Billy Bonds got stuck into each other - both ended up on the floor - and you sensed that one of them would lump the other to get the first blow in. Instead after an initial wrestle they both got up and danced a few steps together.”
Half time: Aston Villa 1-0 West Ham
45+10 mins: Half time has happened. Villa absolutely thrashed West Ham for 15 minutes or so, and scored a goal while they were doing so, but the away side have worked their way back into the game since then and it’s still completely up for grabs.
45+9 mins: Now Digne is down. This game quite badly needs half-time to happen, it’s just turned a bit silly.
45+8 mins: The ball eventually comes in, bounces around a bit, and is volleyed wide by Paqueta.
45+7 mins: Now Cash is on the ground. He did get properly shoved by Soucek, and the referee has a chat with them both.
45+6 mins: Looks like Digne lightly tapped him with an elbow while players jostled waiting for the free-kick. VAR looks at it and decides he’s not bothered by it.
45+6 mins: Now Paqueta’s on the ground, presumably trying to draw attention to an off-the-ball incident.
45+5 mins: A first booking of the game, Tielemans booked for fouling Paqueta (though it looks like Ramsey did the fouling). And then Cresswell talks his way into joining him.
45+3 mins: Cash is fouled on the right and the free-kick leads to a chaotic minute or two, challenges (mostly clean) flying in and possession changing hands, which ends only when Cash is fouled again on the right.
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time and there’ll be plenty of it. Six minute, to be precise.
43 mins: Wan-Bissaka crosses to Alvarez, who chests it down, half-volleys well over the bar, and is then given offside.
41 mins: Kudus runs up behind Tielemans and knocks him down like a skittle. The referee waves play on while the midfielder lies on the ground and West Ham attack for a while, boos ringing out once they finally lose the ball.
38 mins: Ian Maatsen comes on, and will play at left-back with Digne moving to the middle. Here’s Mings on the ACL injury he suffered in August 2023, speaking after his first league start after his recovery, against Brentford just last month:
It was [the journey back] awful, absolutely awful. But I’ve done it before and I did it again. I was always wondering what was keeping me going, whether it was nights like tonight, family, or personal pride. It was a little bit of everything. When times get tough, you ask, ‘What am I still doing this for?’
“The messages I had from them (supporters), was really heartwarming and played a big part. I thank the Villa fans for that because the roar when your name is called out and all of those things add up to my journey back.
36 mins: Mings pulls up again, and this will be the end of his game. He looks pretty distraught about it.
Updated
35 mins: Chance! Villa have a free-kick on the left. Tielemans sends it into the area, Watkins heads it narrowly wide.
33 mins: Play has restarted, and Mings is back on the field.
32 mins: Mings is up, and limping towards the touchline. He’s not immediately being substituted.
29 mins: Mings is down and clutching his left knee, after he tries to pass the ball out of defence just as Kudus comes across to block him.
27 mins: Now Tielemans has a shot from just outside the area, a decent hit with his left foot but it runs a foot wide.
25 mins: Digne crosses and Watkins heads at goal, but he gets no power on it and Areola catches.
22 mins: One pass out of defence from Tielemans finds Rogers just outside the centre circle, and he turns to find himself part of a three-on-three break. He carries the ball to the edge of the area then overhits a pass to Bailey which runs out of play.
20 mins: West Ham play out of the Villa press pretty smartly, and having done so win themselves a corner, which is cleared.
18 mins: It has been several minutes now since West Ham looked like they were almost certain to imminently concede a goal, so that’s something. In statistical news, with his assist Watkins made his 100th goal contribution for Villa, in his 200th game.
15 mins: Half a chance for Lucas Paqueta, but instead of lashing the ball goalwards he tries to lift the ball over Mings’ head, and fails.
15 mins: West Ham have just had a shot, though. Alvarez with it, from 20 yards or so. It hit a defender. “More than any other fixture, this one provides clarety in a confusing world,” quips Peter Oh.
14 mins: A few minutes back I said West Ham had had a goal disallowed when it was, obviously, Aston Villa. Apologies.
11 mins: Bailey cuts in from the right and shoots at Areola. The opening period of this game could not have been more one-sided. “We’re trying to find the right balance between defence and attack,” Graham Potter said. Well, keep looking.
11 mins: Villa have a goal disallowed! Kudus loses the ball, Watkins is played in and his low cross/shot is turned in by Rogers, but Watkins was offside.
Updated
10 mins: And another chance! Watkins has the ball in the area and passes back to Kamara on the edge, but Alvarez blocks his shot
GOAL! Aston Villa 1-0 West Ham (Ramsey, 8 mins)
Now Villa take the lead, and it has been coming! Ramsey plays a one-two with Watkins, outpaces Coufal and slides a left-footed shot across the keeper and in at the far post!
Updated
7 mins: Now Rogers gets in down the right and tries to square to Watkins, but Kilman gets in the way of that as well!
5 mins: Goal-saving tackle from Max Kilman! It was a nice rat-a-tat interplay of passes from Villa to turn a throw-in of their own into a chance for Ramsey, but the pass into him wasn’t perfect and gave Kilman a chance to get in the way, if he nailed his sliding challenge. Which he did.
3 mins: West Ham put two passes together for the first time in the game. In doing so they’ve managed to win an attacking throw-in, which Coufal flings into the box and somebody heads out again.
Updated
1 min: Peeeeeep! Aston Villa get the ball rolling.
Just before kick-off, here’s Jacob Steinberg’s report on Tottenham’s latest misfortune:
Away from the mutinous chants pouring down from the south stand, the unmistakeable disgust with Daniel Levy and the gathering angst around Ange Postecoglou, it was possible to forget about Leicester. Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side have endured a horrible winter and, when they found themselves behind to a fragile Tottenham at half-time, they had the look of a group waiting for the sweet release of relegation.
At that stage they were on their way to their eighth consecutive defeat in the Premier League, equalling a club record set in the 2000-01 season. If history was a guide, though, then playing Spurs was good news for Van Nistelrooy. After all Leicester stopped the rot by beating them 4-2 at Filbert Street 24 years ago. It meant there was almost a grim inevitability to how this match unfolded. In control after Richarlison’s header, it was astonishing to see an injury-hit Spurs collapse in the first five minutes of the second half, 1-0 becoming 1-2 thanks to goals from Jamie Vardy and Bilal El Khannous.
Much more here:
The players are in the tunnel. Kick-off is just a few minutes away!
Jonathan Wilson was at Selhurst Park to see Brentford pinch victory. Here’s his match report:
For Brentford, there was a measure of relief. It’s probably fair to say that the run of one win in nine games in which they went into this weekend was not representative of how they’d played but, still, it’s as well to stifle as early as possible any thought that they were going through a mid-winter slump similar to last season’s. Survival may not quite be mathematically assured but breaking the 30-point mark with 15 games remaining makes it almost certain they will be in the Premier League next season.
After a slow start, the game was rather better than the conditions. It was an afternoon of truly filthy weather, a raw morning yielding to heavy rain, a blustery breeze, and skies of unremitting grey. It was an afternoon to be grateful for modern drainage, the pitch remaining slick and green throughout. With Brentford in a blancmange pink and aubergine away kit that evoked the once-aspirational bathroom in a seedy bedsit in which terrible things have happened from an 80s crime drama, the overall effect was of almost artistic bleakness, a sort of Croydon Noir.
Much more here:
“I can’t think of a more defensive West Ham team in my lifetime,” says Jamie Redknapp. “I guess he just wants to make sure they’re difficult to beat. I think he’s looking at it thinking, let’s get control of midfield and then you hope [someone] can do something special. He just hasn’t got the players at his disposal and most of the players that are fit are defensive ones”
Graham Potter has a pre-match chat:
We’re trying to find the right balance between defence and attack, trying to get the team stable. We have to get that balance. But I’m really happy with how the group have taken on the ideas. We’re at the start and we need to keep working.
Whenever you come in January the ideal scenario would be everything’s calm and we’ve no problems or challenges and obviously that’s not the case. But we’ve got a team we’ve been working with this week and a team we’ve been happy with. All you can do is focus on the players you have and keep working.
In the early afternoon kick-offs Brentford have beaten Crystal Palace 2-1 away from home, and Leicester have done the same to Tottenham. The league table in full:
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 22 | 33 | 53 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 23 | 23 | 47 |
| 3 | Nottm Forest | 23 | 6 | 44 |
| 4 | Man City | 23 | 17 | 41 |
| 5 | Newcastle | 23 | 14 | 41 |
| 6 | Chelsea | 23 | 15 | 40 |
| 7 | AFC Bournemouth | 23 | 15 | 40 |
| 8 | Aston Villa | 22 | -1 | 36 |
| 9 | Brighton | 23 | 4 | 34 |
| 10 | Fulham | 22 | 4 | 33 |
| 11 | Brentford | 23 | 2 | 31 |
| 12 | Crystal Palace | 23 | -4 | 27 |
| 13 | Man Utd | 22 | -5 | 26 |
| 14 | West Ham | 22 | -16 | 26 |
| 15 | Tottenham Hotspur | 23 | 9 | 24 |
| 16 | Everton | 22 | -9 | 23 |
| 17 | Leicester | 23 | -24 | 17 |
| 18 | Wolverhampton | 23 | -20 | 16 |
| 19 | Ipswich | 23 | -26 | 16 |
| 20 | Southampton | 23 | -37 | 6 |
Looks like a pretty dismal day in Birmingham. Let’s hope we get some sunshine football, or something.
The teams!
The team sheets have been handed in, and here is the news. Ollie Watkins starts again, with Duran on the bench for Villa, with Leon Bailey and Lucas Digne the new faces from the team that drew with Arsenal. West Ham bring in Alphonse Areola in goal, and Vladimir Coufal and Carlos Soler out of goal.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Digne, Tielemans, Kamara, Bailey, Rogers, Ramsey, Watkins. Subs: Olsen, Zych, McGinn, Duran, Buendia, Garcia, Malen, Maatsen, Bogarde.
West Ham: Areola, Coufal, Kilman, Cresswell, Wan-Bissaka, Alvarez, Soler, Emerson Palmieri, Lucas Paqueta, Soucek, Kudus. Subs: Fabianski, Foderingham, Luis Guilherme, Ings, Rodriguez, Irving, Casey, Scarles, Orford.
Referee: Peter Bankes.
Hello world!
“Of course, West Ham, they are not being consistent, but they have now a new coach. Tactically, they are going to improve,” said Unai Emery on Friday. We’re about to find out how much improvement they’ve managed, but Villa have some improving to do: sure, they’re eighth in the table which is fine “(“The most important for us is the Premier League, and to be in the table’s top eight positions,” Emery added), and have lost only one of their last five league games, but away from home they’re not so hot: two wins and five defeats in their last eight in the league, which would put them 16th in a notional last-eight-away-from-home table (in mitigation, those fixtures included visits to Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea and Liverpool). Emery said their ambition was to “try to be consistent like we are at the moment at home”, where they would be sixth and unbeaten in a last-eight-games table.
Graham Potter also thinks West Ham are going to improve. “Our ambition is there - we want to get better. We want to move towards a style of play that our supporters recognise and are fond of,” he said at his press conference on Friday. “It has been nice to have a decent stretch of training. We have managed to do some good work, analyse the last game and prepare for Aston Villa, so I think we have used the time well. In every training session and after every message, I think the intention has been there.”
This will be an ideal test of their improvement since Potter’s arrival, and what he’s managed to achieve with that decent stretch of training: these teams played here in the FA Cup a couple of weeks ago, a day after he was unveiled as Julen Lopategui’s replacement, and Villa won 2-1.
Since then West Ham have beaten Fulham 3-2 (in a game where they had four shots overall and only three on target) and lost 2-0 to Crystal Palace (in a game where they had four shots overall and none at all on target). For context, last season the average Premier League game featured 27.2 shots in total. Since Christmas West Ham have had a total of 11 shots on target across six games, while conceding 15 goals at the other end. It’s obvious where that improvement needs to be demonstrated. So, let’s see how they’ve got on, shall we?
