5/3/2011
Bolton Battle Back to Break Villa Hearts.
Ivan Klasnic's late winner left Villa rueing missed chances and sucked the claret and blue back into the relegation battle once again.
Darren Bents early strike gave the Villa the lead as the visitors looked to carry on from their impressive league performance against Blackburn a week ago, and after receiving a great deal of criticism for fielding a weakened side midweek against Man City, Manager Gerrard Houllier looked vindicated for the changes to his starting eleven as his side took the game to a unimposing Bolton performance.
But Bolton refused to give in and on the stroke of half time former Villa defender Gary Cahill headed home from a corner to level the sides on the stroke of half-time.
Villa continued to pile on the pressure after the break, with Bent, Young, Downing and Albrighton continuing to link well going forward and create openings for the midlanders.
On 64 minutes, after Bent had seen a number of efforts blocked or saved by Jaaskelainen, Marc Albrighton restored Villa's advantage bouncing a volley over the Bolton goalkeeper after Downing's cross picked him out at the far post. Ashley Young had a chance to seal 3 points for the away side 5 minutes later when Wheater pulled down the England international in the box. But Young's spot kick was saved by Jaaskelainen, keeping Villas advantage to a minimum.
The miss proved to be costly as just minutes later Cahill fired home his secondoff a rebound from his own header to pull Bolton level 10 minutes before time. But more was still to come as 3 minutes from time Klasnic fired into Friedels bottom left corner to complete a thrilling Bolton comeback.
Defender Ciaran Clark didn't want to dwell on the result after the game and instead looked forward to Villa's clash with Wolves in two weeks time.
“But it wasn’t just the penalty miss that was crucial because we had other chances as well.
“It just wasn’t our day in front of goal but we have got to get on with it now
“We have got a game in two weeks and we’ll concentrate on that now
Clark who recently pick up his first cap for Ireland received his tenth yellow card of the year and will miss Villa's next two games.
Villa now 13th sit just 3 points above the dreaded drop zone.
No comments:
Post a Comment