Fimleikafélag Hafnarfjarðar 1 - 4 Astonafélag Villarfjarðar

By: Martini Extra Dry | August 14th, 2008

Villa opened the game with a flourish, going two goals up within 7 minutes thanks to goals from Gareth Barry and Ashley Young. Villa carried the lead all the way through the game, finally taking a 4-1 advantage into the home leg, which should mean a comfortable passage into the UEFA Cup proper.

All the talk before the game was of the ’surprise’ inclusion of Gareth Barry in the starting line up, ruling him out of Champions League action until February, were his transfer to Liverpool ever to see the light of day. Barry announced prior to the game that he was willing to play a part, knowing it’s implications, and Martin O’Neill didn’t need telling twice.

Villa fans have become divided by the Barry Issue, some saying they really want him to stay, others saying that he isn’t welcome at a club he wanted to leave and where he disrespected the manager. The Pro-Barry camp are now jumping for joy as this very likely means that he will remain a Villa player. If Liverpool were already stalling over his fee, they certainly won’t want to pay it for a player who can’t play in the Champions League all year.

Barry aside, the game was in a similar vein to the home tie against Odense; Villa did enough to get the win but were far from convincing and allowed many goalscoring chances for the opposition. There were flashes of potential for Villa though, all the goals being well taken, but a little time and patience seems to be required for the team to get to know each other. Our passing game needs some work and we need more familiarity between the players, who rarely seemed to be able to predict each others movements.

Gareth Barry opened the scoring with a right-place-right-time tap-in, shortly before Ashley Young scored a nice solo effort. Gabriel Agbonlahor got in on the action with another nice solo goal and then in the second half Martin Laursen towered above the rest to head an Ashley Young corner home.

Substitutions allowed Moustapha Salifou, Wayne Routledge and Nathan Delfounseo to give decent accounts of themselves, particularly Routledge who looked dangerous down the wing.