Aston Villa 1 West Ham 1 - Report
It wasn’t only the fact Villa were leading for more than an hour which made this a draw which felt like a defeat.
A result which saw Unai Emery’s team lose ground in the race for Champions League football was compounded by an injury to Tyrone Mings which, for the time being, looks likely to leave them with just one fit senior centre-back.
Mings, only recently returned from a 14-month absence due to a serious injury to his right knee, left the field in tears having sustained an injury to his left after being hurt by a challenge from Mohammed Kudus.
It looked a devastating moment, though the 31-year-old did later return to the dugout and was on the pitch to shake the hands of opposing players at the final whistle. Even in the best-case scenario, his injury leaves Emery with a major headache heading into Wednesday’s Champions League match with Celtic.
With Diego Carlos having departed for Fenerbahce and Pau Torres out for at least another month with a broken foot, Ezri Konsa is now the only fit senior centre-back with the club’s January hunt for replacements having become a lot more urgent.
A patchwork defence which featured left-back Lucas Digne at centre-back was unable to hold on to the eighth-minute lead provided Jacob Ramsey’s first Premier League goal for nearly 16 months.
Emerson headed the leveller with 20 minutes remaining but in truth the draw was deserved for the visitors, who weathered an early storm from the hosts and got better as the game wore on. For Villa, the opposite was true. Emery, watching from the stands as he served a one-game touchline ban, was powerless to turn the tide.
Hammers centre-back Max Kilman had already been required to make two important interventions before Villa took the lead.
The former Wolves skipper timed his challenge to perfection to dispossess Ramsey when a slick passing move looked to have sent the midfielder through on goal. Kilman was then well placed to stop Morgan Rogers laying a goal on a plate for Ollie Watkins after Villa had again broken through the visiting defence.
But he was nowhere when Ramsey fired Villa into an eighth-minute lead. Picked out by Boubacar Kamara in space, the midfielder drove at the Hammers backline, exchanged passes with Watkins and then burst past Vladimir Coufal before finishing inside the far post. Ramsey, who had missed so much of the time since his last league goal through injury, slid on his knees in celebration.
Villa looked in the mood to quickly add a second and briefly thought they had when Rogers tapped home from Watkins’ pass, only for a raised flag to cut the celebrations short, the striker having strayed offside in the build-up.
Lucas Paqueta, who scored in front of the Holte End earlier this month in the FA Cup, was looking like the visiting team’s biggest threat and it required good work by Mings to first block his shot and then clear the ball behind.
It was Mings who then became the big story of the half. The defender was clattered by Kudus as he passed the ball and caught on the left knee. Immediately, he looked in discomfort but after several minutes treatment tried to continue, only to admit defeat a short while later. Mings was comforted by Watkins before leaving the field and with shirt pulled up over his face, actually walked past the entrance to the tunnel, his mind clearly elsewhere.
Watkins should really have doubled Villa’s lead but headed wide from a Youri Tielemans free-kick, before a rather unedifying end to the half saw what was already going to be a lengthy period of stoppage time extend to nearly 10 minutes. It included a VAR check for a possible red card after Paqueta flopped to the ground when being contacted by Digne’s arm. The latter and Matty Cash also ended up on he floor at various points. It is a shame the Oscar nominations have already been announced.
Digne was sent to the ground within 15 seconds of the second half beginning from what looked a rather cynical kick from Paqueta. The latter then missed his team’s best chance of the match to that point, shooting wide on the turn from barely six yards out.
There was another let-off for Villa on the hour mark when Martinez came to collect a cross and was hit unintentionally by Cash. Carlos Soler pounced on the loose ball and from a tight angle sent it flying toward goal, only for Ezri Konsa to block on the line.
Emery brought Duran and new signing Donyell Malen off the bench and the latter had a shot within 60 seconds, albeit straight at Areola.
But Villa were living increasingly dangerously and with 20 minutes to go the visitors were level. Edson Alvarez curled a cross to the back post and Emerson arrived unmarked to head beyond Martinez, a frustrated Cash seeming to suggest Malen should have been picking up the man.
It was the Hammers who now looked the likely winners but Soucek could not repeat Emerson’s accuracy when he found himself in the same position, unmarked at the far post. This time the header went over the bar.
Duran had Villa’s first chance in a long while when he fired wide on the stretch but then Ings drilled inches wide at the other end. At the death Paqueta thought he had won it, only to be denied by an offside flag.
Villa (4-2-3-1): Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings (Maatsen 38), Digne, Kamara, Tielemans, Bailey (Malen 65), Rogers (Buendia 73), Ramsey (McGinn 73), Watkins (Duran 65) Subs not used: Bogarde, Garcia, Zych (gk), Olsen (gk).
West Ham (3-4-2-1): Areola, Coufal, Kilman, Cresswell, Wan-Bissaka, Alvarez, Soler (Ings 75), Emerson (Scarles 75), Paqueta, Soucek, Kudus Subs not used: Guilherme, Ings, Rodriguez, Casey, Orford, Fabianski (gk), Foderingham (gk).
