ADOMAH HANDS BRUCE A BONUS
Terry off the mark to help Villa rise
ALBERT Adomah’s hot streak took Aston Villa into the top six of the Championship for the first time under boss Steve Bruce.
It was a big day for John Terry as well with his first goal for the club, but it was flying Adomah and his fifth goal in six games that took Villa into fifth.
Fulham had got themselves back into the game with a Stefan Johansen free-kick two minutes into first-half injury time. But Villa regained control before the second half was five minutes old through Adomah.
The forward knows how to get promotion out of the Championship having done it with Middlesbrough before his £5m move to Villa 14 months ago.
Now his blitz of goals in just over a month have got Villa upwardly mobile.
“It’s better than being in the bottom six with all the horrible headlines,” said Bruce.
“But for me we are just about starting in the Championship after 13 games. The winter’s just upon us, the training ground has become bleak, the marathon has started.
“There’s a long winter ahead but we have made progress from where we were 12 months ago. This club has got to be in and around where we are at the moment.
“From a poor start we have dug deep and we are going the right way.”
Adomah has six goals in total in cup and league, double what he got last season, but Bruce was also pleased to see Terry get on the scoresheet.
The former Chelsea centrehalf has done it so many times before for club and country. Up for a free-kick, he timed his move and connected with a glancing header from close range – simple and effective from a good Conor Hourihane delivery.
A lot of Terry’s 41 goals in a near 20-year career at Stamford Bridge that brought him five Premier League and one European Cup winning medals were like that. What Villa would give for recent history as good as that.
Terry, at 36, is helping rebuild a club brought to its knees by repeated failure at the very time he was stacking his mantelpiece with trophies.
It was important Villa won this one having been taken apart in the local derby at Wolves. They needed to start off on another run after losing their first game in nine and Terry got the confidence back.
Fulham are still unable to get their season revved up and manager Slavisa Jokanovic admitted they didn’t do enough about Terry’s goal.
“We know about Terry, that he is dangerous and he has scored many goals like that one,” said Jokanovic.
“But Villa scored easily. We didn’t do enough, we did not show enough personality. Near the end we pushed to try and save the game but in the end we did not score the second goal.”
Villa were caught out when Fulham equalised two minutes into first-half injury time, Johnson beating keeper Sam Johnstone with his free-kick.
Bruce put some blame on Johnstone for that but also gave high praise for a one-on-one save from Rui Fonte.
In the end it was Adomah who had the last word.
Jonathan Kodjia missed his swipe at Joshua Onomah’s squared pass and the unintended dummy allowed Adomah to sweep in from the left with his winner.