Aston Villa 0 Sunderland 1
Nervous Villa saw their European hopes take a further nose dive as they crashed to their first home defeat of the year against lowly Sunderland.
Substitute Michael Chopra’s late effort was enough to give Roy Keane’s side their first away win of the season against a below par Villa.
The £5million summer capture from Cardiff came off the bench and struck the winner with seven minutes remaining.
It silenced the Villa fans who had witnessed another below-par display from Martin O’Neill’s side.
O’Neill’s side failed to score for the second successive game and have now taken just two points from twelve after suffering their first home defeat since loosing 3-1 to Portsmouth on December 8.
A capacity 42,640 crowd – Villa’s fourth full house of the season – watched a largely tepid affair which rarely came to life on a freezing day in Birmingham.
Chances were few and far between and the second half was largely a non event before Chopra’s clinical strike.
Sunderland are clearly up for the survival scrap and victory made it 15 points from goals scored in the last 10 minutes of matches this season.
Villa just about edged the number of chances, with substitute Marlon Harewood having the best of them.
The former West Ham striker poked wide when clean through and later stabbed over the bar while John Carew was just off target with an overhead kick early in the first half.
Sunderland were never out of the game and striker Roy O’Donovon headed over, Andy Reid curled a free-kick just wide and Danny Collins was just off target.
The defeat leaves Villa in seventh level on points with Blackburn and Manchester City.
Villa fans have your say below
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4 Comments
Awful Villa,O’neills signings were woeful and the paper thin squad has run out of ideads.
where is the competition for places ? where is the right back ? are we still to scared to point the finger at M o’n ?
HA HA HA well mon did say it wud take 5 years boing boing going to wembley and europe
gabby is not a stricker,the next game should start with harewood (captain ) with carew,young on the left and gabby on the right with barry and reo in the centre of midfield,and the back four maloney right ,gardner,laursen,and bouma.give sorenson a chance .please MON listen to the fans and give it a go.as for harewood captain i would hate to come in at half time or full time losein with him captain he has (pride and wear`s the villa badge with pride)
we will be in europe and you wont,oh its great being a baggie fan boing boing