Aston Villa held on – by the skin of their teeth at times – against a Manchester City side who will leave Birmingham perplexed by how they failed to turn their midfield dominance into goals. For Villa, Darren Bent’s debut will steal the headlines, but the real heroes of the match were the centreback pairing of Richard Dunne and James Collins, who spent the vast majority of the game making crucial interventions to protect Brad Friedel’s goal. Captain Stiliyan Petrov may have had his best game of the season, hounding City’s players all over the pitch and launching a number of ripostes to quick passes to Marc Albrighton on the flanks. Ashley Young deserves praise too – his shot in the first half led to Bent’s goal, and he almost doubled the home side’s tally in the 66th minute with a 30 yard piledriver that Joe Hart tipped aside acrobatically.
Aston Villa Vs. Manchester City: Darren Bent Gives Villa the Win
City, for their part, were generally reduced to speculative long range efforts, despite the introduction of Adam Johnson for Gareth Barry early in the second half. The the visiting team came to levelling matters was in the 84th minute, when Nigel de Jong’s long distance drive went through Ciaran Clark’s legs, with the young left back getting just enough of a touch on the ball to divert it onto Friedel’s left-hand post. Despite doing everything to try to open up Villa’s defence, including pushing Hart up for the last free kick of the match, Roberto Mancini’s team simply could not score.
The win moves Aston Villa to 16th, three points clear of the relegation zone and one place higher than arch-rivals Birmingham, who were thrashed 5-0 by Manchester United in an earlier match. City, for their part, could have kept pace with United at the top of the table, but instead slump to third behind Arsenal, three points back of the leaders.
