Villa v Portsmouth

By: DJ Cuts | April 23rd, 2007

Villa V Portsmouth David James comes back to haunt Villa in a dull game that will go down in history as James claims a record with 142 Premiership clean sheets, beating that of David Seaman.

Craig Gardner was denied on 7 minutes and also toward the end of the first half, between which Sol Campbell throwing his significant self at the ball to block Agbonlahor and Berger lifting the ball over the crossbar were the only other highlights.

The second half was better with James being tested early on by a good drive from Carew. Not long after Carew put the ball in the net only to have the linesman flag for offside.

James produced an outstanding save to deny Agbonlahor’s top corner destined shot by tipping it over the crossbar for yet another Villa corner.

Ashley Young came off the bench and put Barry though in the final 10 minutes but his shot, to quote the BBC, was “woefully inaccurate”.

Sorensen was not forced to make a save all match and a Matthew Taylor attempt was the only decent attempt Pompey had.

The match only drew an attendance of 31745 and some people say that a full, cheering Villa park would have won us the game, and maybe they are right…..

This leaves Villa 11th in the table with 3 games remaining and all but consigns any already unlikely hopes of a UEFA cup spot to the dustbin.

I suppose, as much as it pains me to say, a point is better than none and it extends our unbeaten run to 6 and we don’t have to look over our shoulders at the relegation dogfight behind us. I think that Villa are improving and there is some encouragement to be take from the game and from Villa’s form as of late. Hopefully next season will be a completely different story and if we can turn a majority of our draws to wins, we will be laughing. No-one expects Martin O Neil to turn our fortunes around that quickly, but it would be nice. Lets give him a few seasons because I think he is a good manager and the only way is up, especially if the coffers Lerner gives to him are substantial.