Albion strengthen play-off hopes but Villa promotion dream fades
If the bullish vision of promotion with which Dean Smith announced himself as Villa manager last October seemed optimistic then, it must feel a little illadvised now.
Villa, who in the last few weeks have seen the gap between themselves and the top six start to grow, needed to beat their neighbours and fellow hopefuls here to keep that possibility alive. Their extraordinary comeback from 3-0 down against Sheffield United showed they cannot be written off, but they never really looked like reversing this one.
Two goals late in the first half handed Albion an advantage they were comfortable enough simply to defend in the second half. The performance earned Darren Moore’s team another crucial away victory and their prospects of at least keeping their place in the play-off zone look good.
For Villa, things began to unravel in their last meeting with Albion in December, when only a controversial handball equaliser by Jay Rodriguez denied them three points. They had beaten Derby and Middlesbrough in their previous two away games, scoring four goals to win the Second City derby in between. Save for the freakish 5-5 draw against Nottingham Forest, Smith seemed to have generated real momentum from the expensive squad he had inherited. But somehow everything changed with the draw at the Hawthorns, leaving Villa with a sense of injustice but also with an injury to their key creative influence, the midfielder Jack Grealish. He has not played since and Villa have won only two matches in 13. His absence does not tell the whole story, but the coincidence is unavoidable. “It doesn’t, but people keep saying that,” Smith said. “He was injured in the West Bromwich Albion game but after we won at Swansea we lost Axel Tuanzebe, then we had an injured James Chester as well, and if you take out that sort of quality it is going to hurt. We battled on after that but for me our dip in performances has been since the FA Cup game against Swansea in January.”
Now seven points outside the top six, and having played more matches than several of those ahead of them, Smith admitted it is going to take “something special” for that promotion goal to be achieved now.
Smith argued that “there was nothing in the game” and that it would have been a different story if Tammy Abraham had not wasted a golden early chance with a heavy first touch that allowed Sam Johnstone to save.
But there was not much in the way of substantiating evidence in what followed. Villa had plenty of the ball but did not do enough with it, ending the first half with a calamitous passage that has become all too characteristic of the way matches evolve for them, allowing Albion to seize control with two goals in the space of four minutes.
Hal Robson-Kanu put the visitors ahead, leaping for a near-post cross by Mason Holgate and sending a looping back-header clear of Lovre Kalinic, which is some feat given that the Croatian goalkeeper is 6ft 7in tall.
Then, in the last minute of the half, Rodriguez doubled the lead, keeping possession when Conor Hourihane stumbled trying to make a tackle and launching a shot from 20 yards or more that went in off a post.
In Kalinic’s mitigation, not only was he in sufficient discomfort from an earlier collision with Jake Livermore not to appear for the second half, but the Rodriguez shot was deflected by defender Tommy Elphick.
Albion, minus the suspended Dwight Gayle, packed behind the ball, inviting Villa to attack, but the home side lacked the imagination to break them down.
“Today was a real collective effort, especially in the second half, when Villa asked us questions,” coach Moore said. “I was at the Sheffield United game when they came back from 3-0 down so to come away from here with a win and a clean sheet is something to be proud of.”