A woeful Wigan left Villa park with nothing as Gabby Agbonlahor’s sterling performance helped seal a 2-0 win for the still unbeaten Midlanders.
“I would have hated to play against him in his current form,” was Alex McLeish’s reaction to his attacking midfielder’s performance that saw him score one himself before setting up Darren Bent for Villa’s second of the afternoon.
Both Agbonlahor and pint-sized Scotsman Barry Bannan were at the heart of every move for Villa on Saturday as they tried to coax the rest of the side out of a slow sluggish first 20 minutes.
Once both grew into the game Villa created a number of chances and the midfield duo opened up the Wigan defense with attacking runs and pin point passes that provided service for Bent and each other.
Bannan had already granted two opportunities for Bent before the opening goal but his header flew wide before Wigan keeper Al-Hasbsi denied the England striker from close range.
Bannan then went to Agbonlahor who took full advantage of the space granted to him on Villa’s left wing. The 24 year old ran straight at Gary Caldwell before cutting onto his right foot and blasting into Al-Habsi’s near top corner to open the scoring.
On the hour mark Villa had doubled their lead through Bent. Agbonlahor, again, raced down Villa’s left flank before finding an unmarked Bent who’s side foot volley neatly wrapped up the points for the home side.
To say an Englishman, a Scotsman and Irishman won the game for Villa would sound like the start of a bad joke, but both Richard Dunne and Shay Given were able to hold off Wigan’s advances in the final 15 minutes to keep a clean sheet for their side and maintain Villa’s unbeaten record for another week.
“It’s nice to get back to winning ways,” said a delighted Given after the game.
“It’s a nice feeling in the changing room to have won the game, and I thought we deserved to win the game today. We all know we’ve had too many draws so it’s nice to be picking up three points again.”
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