Aston Villa 2 Leicester City 1: Villans and Villains
A New Year but not entirely a new us. Ruud van Nistelrooy won’t be giving up on the resolutions he’s set for his Leicester side, but it’s a work in progress with one eye firmly on the transfer window.
I made my way down the SK1 steps feeling disheartened after the Manchester City loss. Our best performance of the season and it yielded us nothing. On a weekend where Enzo Maresca’s Kryptonite - a weakness against Ipswich - allowed the Tractor Boys to leapfrog us in the table after their win over Chelsea.
With a New Year on the horizon, on my drive home I started to take the positives from our performance. Going away to Aston Villa wouldn’t be easy but if the players could use that effort and channel it, perhaps we had a chance. A fox crossing my path pre-match another potential omen.
Ruud van Nistelrooy hasn’t had an ideal start to life in terms of team selection. Joining the club with two of our best players out injured, losing our player of the season to a groin injury he can’t shake and various other knocks and illnesses keep unsettling his best eleven. This week’s roulette wheel for who’ll be suddenly out landed on Victor Kristiansen. The Dane out sick.
Jordan Ayew was back in the lineup having served his suspension. His inclusion came at the expense of Facundo Buonanotte which would have got a few more eyebrows lifted if we weren’t so distracted by Luke Thomas coming back in to cover Kristiansen.
Jannik Vestergaard and Conor Coady were the preferred centre back pairing again. Otherwise, it was the same team who put Pep Guardiola’s side under a lot of pressure.
It wasn’t a vintage forty-five minutes for either side. There were long periods of both teams sitting back and players stood in possession. It suited us though, we weren’t under immense amounts of pressure and Jakub Stolarczyk didn’t have to face the same level of shots that Mads Hermansen was getting accustomed to before Christmas. Things were pretty even at half time.
Villa broke the deadlock with a very good goal. You can argue that Ross Barkley should have closed down or somebody should be putting a foot in but it was an excellent strike. One that felt like it signalled doom and gloom.
Kudos then to Ayew who made the goal from nothing down the right wing. His ball across the face of goal should have been Jamie Vardy’s goal but Martinez got to it only to palm it straight to Stephy Mavididi who buried it.
Hope was back on the menu. Briefly. Hopefully those partaking in dry January didn't break their resolution after the dismal first half of this match or in sheer frustration at the inevitably yet stupidity of conceding the winning goal. Having somehow found our way back into the game, the manner in which we threw it all away was particularly frustrating. Leon Bailey easily escaped James Justin and was able to pick his shot.
Congratulations too for Bailey who not only secured the three points but took home this latest edition of the Benteke trophy. He’d not scored since April 2024. Commiserations to those in Fosse Way Towers who’d put Emiliano Buendia on the sweepstakes for it. When he lined up a shot at 1-1, it was a clench on your seat moment.
Photo: Harry Gregory
An implosion moment for James Justin
For the winning goal, see various of the previous match reports. You know exactly which side of the pitch it came down. Villa were just the latest team to line up their attacking players, or bring on pointed substitutes to target our right flank. It’s like watching the same part of the horror film where our hero is trapped by the big bad and makes the wrong decision on repeat at this point.
Anything Justin could have done in that moment would have been better than what he chose. Instead, it all made Bailey’s life far too simple and the goal played out in slow motion. Football is a team sport, they should play as a team and defend as a team, but the individual errors have been so noticeable. The irony is that Justin had been playing pretty well up to this point too but none of that will matter now.
If you have a heart, it’s hard not to feel for James Justin. He comes across as a very honest, well meaning player in interviews. I’m still of the belief that somewhere in him is a competent player, but he’s lost it and any confidence, and we’ve long stopped giving him the tools to get it back. Fatawu is possibly the best option to be playing in front of him because he will come back and defend with everything. But given how little he played pre-injury, you’re starting to see some of the problem. Justin is so often left out on his own, struggling. Something has to give.
Like substituting him against Wolves, though that decision coming very quickly after half time and not during it remains bizarre, Ruud has to take Justin out of the equation. His position is untenable at this stage and the social media knives were well and truly out for him this time. Compilations have been made of the nineteen goals that have come down his flank, or from a mistake of his, are circulating.
Whether that’s dropping him for a few games to let the heat die down and try somebody else or replacing him entirely, leaving him to hang out to dry again and again is costing us and may be something he won’t recover from. Luke Thomas in the previous relegation season is a cautionary tale here.
It’s what made the manner of that second goal all the more infuriating. You’ve seen it before. We’ve all seen it before, a lack of support and cover from other players. For everything Jordan Ayew did well for our equaliser, he offered Justin no ally here. It’s groundhog day defensively despite Ruud and co focusing on it.
That’s the crux too, we defended better generally. You can see that time and energy has gone into fine tuning us and looking to get us defending as a unit. Credit too as Thomas’ performance yesterday was quite encouraging.
It’s the first time in over two seasons he appeared to be playing with any belief or confidence. We didn’t get back to the free flowing overlap on attack he used to do (with Harvey Barnes) but he looked fairly solid.
Photo: Jamie Barnard
All the same issues coming home to roost again
The official YouTube channel titled the highlights “City edged out” which underplays the stats and the real reason we came away empty handed. When Villa took the lead our xG was 0.05. We were into the second half with no shots on target and Martinez able to have set up a deckchair to lounge in had he wished.
Edged out but we finished the game with just four shots on goal? Two of which came when we got our goal and were our only shots on target. A goal that came out of nowhere as far as statistics are concerned, but it did shift our xG to 0.34 come the final whistle. Hurray. It felt like the miss of Buonanotte contributed to this, but when Ayew did perform valiantly, it’s a tough choice.
The lack of quality and making it count in the final third can’t be ignored. It cost us against Manchester City too. Even the goal we did score felt like a relief. Ayew was temporarily in acres of space ahead of everybody else before Mavididi and Vardy caught up.
There were a couple of moments like that, a lack of progressive movement. Resulting in things like El Khannouss hitting a wild shot rather than waiting again for movement around him.
We are continuously haunted by past decisions like a rom-com film character returning to her small hometown after years away. We pretend like they didn't happen or won't matter but then Victor Kristiansen is out sick and you're lining up Luke Thomas on one side of your back line and James Justin on the other.
Half of the same defence that started the last time we played Villa in the relegation season. If ever a game highlighted how weak we still are for Premier League pedigree defenders, it’s this one. Jannik Vestergaard forced off through injury and replaced by Wout Faes doesn’t inspire confidence for the coming game either.
We’re back relying on a key transfer window, as if previous January transfers haven’t been pretty catastrophic or ineffective. Kristiansen is perhaps the current exception, though it’s taken two years for him to be a regular starting player. Even if you’re choosing to ignore the latest PSR accusations and assuming we will spend this window, you’re crossing your fingers that we get who we need in.
Van Nistelrooy likely has more of a ‘need’ list than a ‘wishlist’ for this squad, such are the gaping holes across the squad. It’s impossible not to reflect back on Steve Cooper not knowing, or refusing to recognise and play, our best team and not utilising Ricardo or Abdul Fatawu.
Ruud took over and hasn’t had the luxury of having either available, making replacements for them a priority. And that’s not even looking at our defenders.
Hurtling toward the business end of the season
Objectively, this wasn’t a terrible performance. We looked more resolute defensively, ignoring the individual moments of madness, but for all we managed to do to shut out Aston Villa, we struggled at the other end.
Quality, consistent quality has been another ongoing issue. Under Cooper we were scoring a goal a game but they were individual moments of brilliance. We’ve struggled to score quite as many lately.
Ruud has us looking more like a joined up team and the progress is evident. However, we’re getting to the part of the season where it no longer matters how you’re playing, the only thing people are looking for is points. We need to be creating more and scoring more for that to happen.
If you're looking to spin a positive angle, December, and even this first fixture of January, has been a hard run of games. In theory, it gets a little easier in the next four.
We’ll ignore the FA Cup game coming up because while a win would help with momentum and confidence, we don’t really have the squad to start taking our eye off the relegation fight to look at a cup run.
Our next four in the league? Crystal Palace and Fulham at home, Tottenham and Everton away. They’re not easy games but the home fixtures are the ones to target. If the crowd can keep the Manchester City vibes going, the players will feed off that and they need us more than ever.
It’s still week one of the transfer window, but we haven’t had any movement in or out yet. Ruud said positive things about the plan and the targets, but a bit like seeing improved performances, we’d like to see bodies coming in before we get too excited.
