Monday, February 6th, 2012
John Carew managed to score a late goal to rescue a point for Aston Villa against Wolves as the Midlands derby saw the Villans put their Champions League hopes in doubt by dropping points against one of the relegation strugglers. Nobody would have envisioned the goal-shy Wolves in putting two goals past the normally defensively sound Aston Villa and for long periods of the match, Mick McCarthy’s team threatened to pull off a shock win in the derby meeting at Villa Park.
It did not all start out like that as Villa had threatened to overrun the visitors in the opening quarter of the game with James Milner exploiting space in the centre of the park and they deserved the lead given them by Carew. But Wolves came back strongly and left Villa stunned with their response in the second half. After scoring the two goals from Jody Craddock and an own goal from man in the spotlight earlier in the week James Milner, they almost succeeded in a putting up a last stand before Carew finally broke their hearts.
While Wolves would view this as a precious point in their battle to avoid the drop, Aston Villa must see this as two points dropped in their quest to qualify for the Champions League for the first time.
In showing the ambition they have started to build in recent weeks, Wolves midfielder David Jones claimed his side were left frustrated despite fighting hard for a valuable point in a 2-2 draw away to Midlands rivals Aston Villa, a result that other relegation rivals would normally celebrate.
“We’re coming off disappointed,” Jones told Sky Sports. “I think we played well and deserved three points but it wasn’t to be – but before the game you would look at a point to be a good result here.
“We knew they would come on strong in the second half, they have been really good this season and we knew coming here would be difficult – but to get in such a good position and concede not the best of goals, we’re coming off disappointed.”
On a personal level, David Jones had a great game as he played a part in both of Wolves goals. There were no offside controversies in them unlike Villa’s two goals as Jones first delivered the free-kick for Jody Craddock’s equaliser before James Milner put through his own goal under pressure from the midfielder.
“The first was a free-kick, we work on those in training and I was glad that it came off. The second was more of a patient build-up, a good move, I thought I was going to put it in but all that matters was it went in.”
Match highlights of Aston Villa vs Wolves:
Tags: Aston Villa, David Jonese, English Premier League, James Milner, John Carew, Match Highlights, Match Review, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Wolves