Tight and tense in the first half, Wolves might have benefited from getting more men in the box to capitalise on their possession. Villa’s biggest hope seemed to be the fact that their opponents didn’t seem too desperate to win the game.
Wolves’ sweeping outside-of-the-foot passes were the first clue though that the hosts were operating on another level to their visitors.
Villa were chasing shadows at the beginning of the second half and getting deeper and deeper, the inevitable soon happened when Diogo Jota fired Wolves into the lead with the Villa backline stretched.
Wolves seemed to be in such control of the game, that it seemed they had decided at half-time they were going to win it 2-0.
It was perhaps the best Championship performance MOMS has witnessed during Villa’s spell in the division, and a reminder of what Steve Bruce has to do to ensure Villa don’t extend that spell any longer.
Aston Villa Player Ratings vs Wolves
Sam Johnstone – 6
Didn’t have that much to do until the first goal, apart from deal well with an awkward swirling shot from distance. Ultimately, it wasn’t really his fault the players in front of him were being outclassed.
Ahmed Elmohamady – 6.5
Unfortunate with his slip that led to Wolves first goal, but he had a busy game with more touches of the ball than any other Villa player by far.
Villa didn’t really have enough possession for Elmohamady to make any telling contributions going forward though.
John Terry – 6
Started off well, with some good blocks, but with Villa’s midfield over run, resistance was eventually futile.
James Chester – 6
See Terry. A bad week for Chester after having his World Cup dreams shot down with Wales too.
Alan Hutton – 7 (MOTM)
This kind of sums up Villa being outclassed, when their best player on the day was a right-back filling in at left-back.
Hutton made a couple of top draw potential goal-saving block tackles to top off a decent defensive performance. He looked awkward in possession without a left foot, but he was just filling in and was the only Villa player to come out of the game with any real credit.
Glen Whelan – 6
Whelan was Whelan. it is, what is it.
Robert Snodgrass – 6.5
An early yellow card didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for the fight. Some key passes and a decent enough free-kick that hit the bar late on. A bit sloppy in possession at times though, but ultimately he didn’t have much to work with around him.
Conor Hourihane – 6
Didn’t really impact the game much and you have to say, looked a lesser version of what Wolves had going on in midfield.
Keinan Davis – 6
Didn’t really get the ball to stick long enough to make things happen and bring others into the game. Also, perhaps didn’t see enough of the ball in the first place to impact the match.
Jonathan Kodjia – 6
A game where ironically enough you needed something special and selfish from Kodjia, since Villa were too functional to open Wolves up.
Big games need big players…I’ll leave it at that.
Albert Adomah – 6
Adomah spent more time tracking back and defending than contributing anything going forward. Against better opponents, he’ll need to take the game by the scruff of the neck more and impose himself on the left-flank to take the play into his opponent’s half .
Off the Bench…
Hogan (64) – 5
If he touches the ball…
— MY OLD MAN SAID (@oldmansaid) October 14, 2017
Hogan only touched the ball four times. Nuff said.
Onomah (73) – N/A
Bruce should have sent him on before Wolves scored their second, to try and give Villa something extra going forward in midfield when they were 1-0 down.
O’Hare (79) – N/A
Apart from a bright moment on the edge of the Wolves box when he had a run at their defence, it was really too late for him to make any real impact. Did offer Villa something different though. Doesn’t look out of place at this level.
UTV
All very well beating Burton or Bolton. This was a true test of where we are. Maybe you should give a manager rating too. At 0-0 I thought we might hold on. At 0-1 I thought even if we got an equaliser Bruce would settle for the point. At 0-2 I stopped fooling myself and realised we never at any point really had a chance with him in charge. Bruce – 2 out of 10.
Yep, I thought about a manager rating at the start. Probably a good idea or as a separate article.
It’s just an indication of where we are when we play quality opposition doesn’t say much about our promotion hopes, left back cover absolutely essential in January
Another frustrating game where our 2 tall strikers had to try to perform whilest dragging an anchor or 2 clamped firmly to the back of their tops . Seems it’s permissible to do it to Villa players to slow them down