Odense BK 2-2 Aston Villa

By: Martini Extra Dry | July 19th, 2008

Poor is about the only word for tonight’s performance from Villa, who deserved to, and very nearly did, lose. Villa took the lead early on, but were soon level. Then after enduring a storm, took an undeserved lead, but finally got caught out with a minute to go, to finish the game 2 goals each.

After an encouraging opening 15 minutes, Villa completely fell apart, with no shape whatsoever to the team and a very dismaying amount of play undoing us down the right hand side.

John Carew opened the scoring with a nicely taken, if not a little hazardous, volley to give Villa an expected lead. After that it looked like Villa would trounce the Danes with at least 3 or 4 goals, but poor old Steve Sidwell put into his own net on his competitive Villa debut and from that moment the game totally changed direction.

From then on Odense took the game to us and the only reason they didn’t finish us off was their lack of quality when facing Premiership opposition. The Danes put up a very good fight and did enough to take the home win into the second leg, but just lacked that final touch.

What was most unsettling (unless O’Neill gets busy in the transfer market) was how much play came at us down our right flank. With Craig Gardner filling in at right back and Nigel Reo-Coker shifted out to right midfield, Villa got well and truly butchered down that side.

In the last quarter of the game Villa seemed to get a second wind and managed a few half hearted attacks, one of which lead to an Ashley Young free-kick floating in and being headed in very competently by the new Villa captain; Martin Laursen.

Villa almost took the win back home but for a last minute slip up, allowing Odense’s Christensen to poke home an equaliser. The result must have been very satisfying for Villa failure Eric Djembe-Djembe, who is now with Odense, as he faced his old club.

Another dismaying note from the game was how badly Carew and Agbonlahor linked up up-front. They both saw the ball in good positions many times but failed to react to each other and create opportunities.

What seems to be Villa’s main problem is a lack of structure. Last season we didn’t necessarily have a team of 11 players good enough to be sixth in the Prem, but we had a TEAM who played TOGETHER well enough to be. We linked up and knew where each other were going to go and reacted accordingly. Hopefully with time we can get that back with the new boys and new formations.