Aston Villa's campaign has now brought more defeats than points. A 17th setback of the sorriest season in their 142-year history was eminently predictable but, if the statistics are unflattering, the manner of it was still more damning.
Stoke merely needed to be competent to win. Villa’s self-destructive streak was writ large on an encounter decided by Marko Arnautovic’s double. Another almost struck twice for Mark Hughes’ team. Mark Bunn’s two best saves came from a teammate. Without them, Jores Okore would have recorded a double of own goals.
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In such situations, some take respite in gallows humour. Others resort to realism. When the Stoke supporters taunted their opponents in song, their Villa counterparts promptly agreed. The sentiments are understandable.
Villa are atrocious, a shell of a club with an embarrassment of a team. They made error after error in defence and mustered a solitary shot on target. That produced a goal, but accurate as Leandro Bacuna’s finish was, it was scarcely created. The ball bounced off Rudy Gestede’s hand to the Dutchman, whose half-hearted celebration showed a lack of belief it would prompt an equaliser.
“It is difficult for us to score goals,” said a downcast Villa manager Remi Garde. He tried to console himself with the thought that this was better than their previous game. Yet as that, the 6-0 loss to Liverpool, was their heaviest home defeat since 1935, it was saying little.
He insisted they were fully committed this time. “It was more a question of quality than effort,” he added. “We don’t have enough quality.”
And, in the manner of many a struggling side, Villa cannot complete 90 minutes without making a major mistake. On this occasion they were guilty of at least four. “The plan was to defend well,” said Garde. Villa didn’t.
Their propensity to cause their own problems stretches from the football field to their phones. Joleon Lescott caused controversy after the Liverpool game by tweeting a picture of an expensive Mercedes. Garde believed his explanation it was an accident, rather than an illustration of an uncaring player flaunting his wealth, and rewarded the veteran with the captaincy.
Thirteen days later, the pratfall-prone centre-back was his partner, Okore, who bookended the game with hapless attempts to cut out crosses that, but for Bunn’s acrobatics, would have brought goals.
Instead, Stoke scored with the game’s first shot on target. The fact it came in the 51st minute tells a tale. The goal came gifted by Villa. Phil Bardsley accelerated towards Xherdan Shaqiri’s chipped pass, too quickly for Ashley Westwood, who caught him with a raised boot. Arnautovic slotted the penalty in.
Their second goal was farcical, from a Villa perspective. Shaqiri’s catalytic qualities were apparent again in a far-post cross that Arnautovic met. Yet his initial header went straight up in the air and, while Bunn grappled with the back of the net and Joleon Lescott stood and watched, the Austrian was allowed to chest the ball over the line. “The one thing Marko was lacking was a goal threat,” said Hughes. “He has added that this year. It is 10 goals now, a good return for a wide-left man.”
His team are now in eighth and on course for their highest Premier League finish. The sense of ambition was apparent in their newest recruit, Giannelli Imbula. Stoke spent a record £18.3 million (Dh93.2m) fee on tank of a midfielder in January while Villa’s expenditure amounted to nothing. They seemed resigned to relegation. “There are still 11 games to play,” said Garde, but not with the air of a man who expects anything other than a drop into the Championship.
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