Matchday Musings: Sunderland Graft Hard to Earn a Point vs Aston Villa

The visit of Aston Villa was highly anticipated, as it presented an opportunity to secure more points on the board.

They had started the season in a stuttering fashion and, if you believe what you hear, all is not well behind the scenes at Villa Park.

With another full house and the backing of a vibrant Stadium of Light crowd, things, at the outset, seemed set to go in our favour.  

I wasn’t in my usual seat. I had originally planned to be away, but those plans changed, and I had already offered my seat to someone else. Luckily, another friend’s dad wasn’t going, so I took up his seat in the East Stand. So I watched the game from completely the opposite perspective than I usually do.

There were two changes from the team started at Crystal Palace last week. Habib Diarra’s rumoured injury proved to be true and he was replaced by Chris Rigg; for his first start of the season. Simon Adingra made way for the fit again Enzo Le Fèe. The back four of Reinildo Mandava, Omar Alderete, Nordi Mukiele and Trai Hume remained the same, so there was no way back for Dan Ballard. Noah Sadiki, Granit Xhaka and Chemsdine Talbi made up the rest of midfield and Wilson Isidor continued as a lone stroker through the middle. And Robin Reofs retained the goalkeeper jersey.

During the first half hour, you’d be forgiven for thinking we were back in League One, as all Villa had in their locker were spoiling tactics and trying to con the referee, who was taken in on more than one occasion.

An example of such was when Talbi skinned Villa captain, John McGinn, on half an hour, the Villa man fell to the floor as if he’d been shot by a sniper. The ref fell for this blatant piece of cheating and Talbi was penalised.

More diving and play-acting were to ensue for the next few minutes until Villa’s Matty Cash clattered into the back of Reinildo Mandava in the 34^th minute. It was a clumsy challenge which was penalised with a free kick to us. However, the momentum of the challenge sent Reinildo onto his backside and his legs went flying into the air and caught the undercarriage of Cash. The referee–and more importantly VAR–deemed it as deliberate foul play and a red card was shown. I couldn’t see anything from the east side of the ground as it happened on the other side of the pitch. I have watched it several times since and feel a red card was a harsh decision. Though many disagree with me on that.

Soon after the sending off, Wilson Isidor came close with a header in the 36^th minute.

Then Régis Le Bris changed the team and sacrificed Rigg for Ballard. Ballard has the added advantage of being a goal threat, which he showed a minute after the half-time break.

Aldrete then hit the bar with a header from close range on 51 minutes.

You really couldn’t tell which team had ten men. We were playing with such drive and determination.

Villa continued with their awkward tactics as Ballard was thrown to the ground in the 54^th minute, which the referee didn’t see. The stats say we had six corners to their five, but our ten men were standing up to their full quota well.

On the 65^th minute Trai Hume made one of his trademark ‘tackles’ on the touchline, taking out the Villa man, Morgan Rogers, totally. Though he did get the ball.

A minute later the ball found Matty Cash from the resulting corner, 25 yards from goal. And he smashed it past Robin Roefs who remained rooted to his spot. Whether he was unsighted, it’s the first real error we’ve seen from our new ‘keeper and I think he will be disappointed with that one.

It only took nine minutes for parity to be restored, Xhaka cushioned a header for Wison Isidor to sweep home from five yards for his third goal of the season. Both teams seemed to be happy to settle for a draw as substitutes made brief appearances. Including one for Dan Neil. Good to see.

So a share of the spoils it was to be. Villa were poor and there’s no doubt in my mind that had we kept eleven players on the pitch, we would have won. The games was spoilt by a poor refereeing decision, in my view.

A lesson for Reinildo, not to be so hot-headed. But the Premier League is a learning curve.

We now have eight points from our first five games and we sit in seventh place after all the games have taken place.

A position we all would have snatched your hand off for had it been offered pre-season.

So onto Nottingham Forest in next Saturday’s tea-time game. The spirit of this team, with its never say die attitude against the cavalier attacking attitude of Ange Postecoglou’s side, should be interesting to say the least.