Two seasons ago, Aston Villa played their second match of the season at St. James Park, and were comprehensively thrashed 6-0. While Saturday’s match, Villa’s fourth of the Premier League season, wasn’t quite as bad as that, but that won’t bring the home side much comfort. Paul Lambert’s men might have found comfort in picking up three points from three difficult matches, against Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, but the Villa manager will have to face some tough questions after failing to win at home against Newcastle.
One of those questions might be why the side failed to invest in a quality defender near the end of the transfer window, particularly after the early matches showed that the Villa still exhibited plenty of weaknesses in their defense. Instead, sticking by Lambert’s plan of “put on ten attackers and the defense won’t matter,” the club signed Lazio benchman Libor Kozak to complete their summer dealings.
And so it was little surprise that Newcastle was able to exploit the Villa defense and get in the first goal of the match. Loic Remy quickly learned how to slip past Matthew Lowton, and the visitors funneled their attacks down the left. A ball from Remy bounced off Papiss Cisse to land at the feet of Hatem Ben Arfa, who fired past Brad Guzan into the center of the net.
Unfortunately for the Villa Park faithful, the idea of being able to score just one more than their opponents didn’t quite work out as planned. Just before the end of the first half, Andreas Weimann had a fantastic opportunity to make the score 1-1. But despite his close range effort, the Austrian put the ball just wide. Just before the hour mark, Gabby Agbonlahor wasted a golden opportunity,
Villa thought they were saved when Christian Benteke stepped up to score his fifth goal in five appearances. Taking advantage of both the confusion surrounding the introduction of new Villa forward Libor Kozak, as well as a bit of a muddle from Tim Krul, who couldn’t figure out how to get around Agbonlahor, Benteke got on the end of a corner from Ashley Westwood and headed in the equalizer.
The visitors weren’t contend to settle for just a point, however, and it took only five minutes for Newcastle to take the lead once more. Again Cisse and Arfa cut through the Villa defense, only this time, Guzan was there to stop the shot from Arfa. However, the Villa keeper could only push the ball to the feet of Yoan Gouffran, who had no trouble putting the ball over Guzan’s head and into the top left corner of the net.
Aston Villa: Guzan, Lowton, Okore (Clark 30), Vlaar, Luna; El Ahmadi (Kozak 67), Westwood, Delph; Weimann (Tonev 88), Benteke, Agbonlahor
Subs not used: Steer, Bacuna, Helenius, Sylla
Newcastle: Krul; Debuchy, Coloccini, Yanga-Mbiwa, Santon; Anita (Tioté 74), Sissoko, Cabaye (Ameobi 88); Remy (Gouffran 63), Cisse, Ben Arfa
Subs not used: Dummett, Elliot, Taylor, Marveaux
