Key events
GOAL! Aston Villa 2-1 Fulham (McGinn 50)
Another day, another jazzer of a captain’s goal! Traore, back to goal, is forced towards his own by remorseless pressing, then Bogarde pinches the ball off him and finds Buendia, who moves on one to McGinn. And the skipper takes a touch then, from the edge, cuts across a low left-footer that swerves out and into the near-post side-netting.
48 min Rogers carries forward and, of course, Watkins attacks the last line, but the pass has too much on it.
47 min Elliott just wasn’t able to get going; I wonder if he might do better with space in front of him, so i the pivot alongside McGinn, rather than in behind Watkins.
46 min We go again; Villa have Buendia ready to come on and he replaces Elliott.
Things that would not be missed: that thing that Sky do, when they have a break, then come back to tell you what you’re watching, before going to another break. I guess it spares us more Jamie Redknapp, so there’s that.
Half-time entertainment:
HALF-TIME: Aston Villa 1-1 Fulham
Fulham started really well with King outstanding, but Villa equalised out of nothing and were the better team thereafter.
45+8 min Digne curls over the wall but without requisite power, Leno plunging right to make a comfortable save.
45+7 min A poor touch from Berge is seized upon by Bogarde, who finds Rogers; a poor touch allows Leno to clear but Guessand quickly picks up possession, buys a foul off Lukic, and Villa have a free-kick 25 yards out, right of the D. Digne will take…
45+6 min Eventually, Lukic swings it out, Villa clear, and Sessegnon’s ball back in dribbles through to Martinez.
45+5 min Berge bursts away from McGinn, who pulls him down and is booked; almost immediately, Fulham win a corner, Wilson and Lukic behind it.
45+4 min Why do sky now display time as 48.34, say, rather than 45+3.34?
45+3 min Iwobi coaxes a decent ball over the top and into the middle for the marauding Lukic, whose first touch is poor, taking him wide. But he recomposes, squaring for Wilson, who can’t quite dig the ball out from under his feet, poking a shot wide.
45+1 min Silva, on a rolling boil now, is booked for mouth after complaining about a booking handed to Wilson for a foul.
45 min We’ll have eight additional minutes, most of them for the treatment Jimenez took prior to departing injured.
44 min Villa like that ball over the top and McGinn clips a beauty seeking Rogers, running in behind, but he can’t quite take it down as it drops over his shoulder. Still, though, this is much better from the home side; Fulham could do with half-time.
42 min Marco Silva will be seething – a phrase I might stick on my clipboard – at the penalties his side didn’t get. For what it’s worth, I don’t think either satisfied what should be a high bar for an 80% chance of a goal, though the handball in particular is one we’ve seen given.
41 min Villa needed that goal badly – they’ve been third-best in this game so far. Now they have it, though, the onus is on them to push the pace, and that’s what they’re trying to do, Fulham pinned back for the first time.
39 min VAR wants to see if Watkins was offside … and he wasn’t!
GOAL! Aston Villa 1-1 Fulham (Watkins 38)
RELEASE! Digne clips a good long pass over the top, Watkins running in behind and away from Bassey. But really, the ball shouldn’t get anywhere near him because Andersen os underneath it, somehow clearing fresh air so, as Leno comes out, Watkins loops a terrific finish over him, ending the drought! Villa are level!
36 min We see a graphic telling us that Watkins has touched the ball twice in 35 minutes; the same as Jimenez, who’s been off for half an hour. As Chris Sutton notes, his penalty in midweek was that of a man bereft of confidence, so he ought to have whacked it with his laces – likewise Bruno Fernandes yesterday, given how long he had to wait before taking it and how goods Caiomhin Kelleher is at saving them.
35 min But Villa pick up the loose ball, pump it into the box again, and when another clearance drops to the edge, Cash leathers way over the top.
34 min Rogers is starting to assert himself, holding off then running away from Lukic, who introduces him to grass and is booked. Free-kick Villa, 30 yards out, almost in line with the corner of the box; McGinn will swing in … and Wilson will head away.
32 min Pau Torres replaces Mings, so Villa lose a bit of physicality but now have a better passer to help them build the play.
31 min The first flash of Rogers, who wriggles past a challenge on halfway and finds Elliott, dashing into position for a return … but the ball goes backwards. Villa need to take more risks in possession because currently, Fulham are keeping them out of the box pretty easily.
30 min Jimenez has sustained an adductor injury, we’re told, and another with knack is Mings; on the touchline, Pau Torres is getting stripped.
28 min “In the interests of balance,” begins Paul Oakes, “I’m expecting a detailed review of the expensive bit of Villa Park’s catering offer, as today’s Grace Dent review is a restaurant inside Craven Cottage, and not on a match day! Features a really weird attempted deception as well.”
26 min Looking again at the King booking, he goes to ground before Martinez’s challenge comes; if he’d stayed up, he’d have been cleaned out, and that would’ve been a penalty.
24 min King is an absolute menace, twinkling in off the right, skipping across McGinn and shooting; Cash, spreading his body to block, wears the shot on his hand. Naturally Fulham want a penalty, but the ref turns them down … and so does VAR, I guess because the defender wasn’t looking at where the ball came from, so couldn’t do much to get out of the way. It’s a marginal one.
23 min Lovely from Fulham, Castagne and Wilson combining nicely to release Traore, who moves on to King; he drives towards into the box, goes down as Martinez comes out, and is booked for diving. I can’t argue with that, though I’m sure he’d run the anticipating contact defence.
22 min “Points of pedantry,” begins Benjamin Gravestock, “but VP’s camera viewpoint is in the Doug Ellis Stand not the Trinity Road one…
Can’t really blame you – I once was involved in considering the club as a venue for a corporate event, and was startled to see VP was mirrored in their own brochure, with all the stands in the wrong place…!
Other Villa thoughts: our issues with wing-back systems really haunted us with Crystal Palace and Manchester United at the end of last season, and I think Rashford being shoehorned in unbalanced the side slightly. Morgan Rogers’ club decline started after being pushed into the wider forward role by the presence of Asensio, too. Asensio created and scored enough that it didn’t really matter, but Rogers’ seems to still be struggling to adapt either to being wide or being back in the middle.
I still think this squad is good. The summer was frustrating, but if we can just keep going I think it’ll come back to us eventually. Personally I’m not among the bubbling Emery-doubters – this is certainly the best squad I’ve seen in my 30 years of following, and whilst no one can argue they’re playing well, I have faith!”
That’s odd – I checked, and Google told me the dugouts, opposite our view, are in the Doug. On Rashford, I totally didn’t buy the line we were fed that he was good at Villa, he wasn’t – and I don’t think the players were impressed with or by him either – and agree there’s a good side in there.
19 min Fulham’s attackers run the channels really well, and the balls down the line to bring them into play are hit really accurately. One finds Traore, who can’t make anything of it, but the tactic is giving them plenty of joy, and I see no reason why that won’t continue given how high Villa defend.
18 min A poor touch from Bassey, followed by a poor, panicked pass, allows McGinn to steal the ball on the edge of the box, and he’s in! But opening his body, his curler wafts wide, and that’s a really good chance spurned.
16 min McGinn delivers left-footed – why aren’t more players able to take with both feet? – and Elliott peels away to the back post, clearly a planned move, then lashes back across, so Sessegnon blocks behind. The second corner comes to nowt.
15 min We’ve barely seen Villa as an attacking force. So far, the game is going exactly as Fulham want it – though, as I type, Guessand wins a corner down the right.
