Aston Villa put in a battling display on a rain soaked night at The Etihad, but yet again, we travel home from Manchester ruing more VAR controversy!
Simon Lines (SL) and Nick Moore (NM) join UTV podcast team members Ryan Mckeown and Justin Hawthorne to cover tonight’s Player Ratings.
If you’d like to join us for the next game drop us a comment.
Aston Villa Formation 4-2-3-1
Emi Martinez – 8
Great saves, great handling and continuing to prove an absolute steal of a transfer. (NM)
Matty Cash – 8
Had his work cut out defending against two players for a lot of the time. Overall, outstanding defensively along with the rest of the back 4, unlucky with the pen. (JH)
Ezri Konsa – 8.5
Another colossal display from the centre half. Put his body on the line with some fantastic blocks! (RM)
Tyrone Mings – 7
Made 5 to 6 key blocks to keep the score level at 0-0. Excellent until he wrongly got robbed for the goal. (SL)
Matt Targett – 9 (Fan Voted – MOTM)
Outstanding performance. Kept Sterling well shackled and his slide tackles were a thing of beauty. Shame we lost him to injury. One of his best games in a Villa shirt as his confidence continues to grow. (RM)
John McGinn – 6
Worked hard in the middle of the pitch, wasteful in possession and mishit a wonderful chance late on with the scores level at 0-0. (NM)
Douglas Luiz – 6
Quiet game. City dominated possession and Luiz was unable to get on the ball. (SL)
Ross Barkley – 6
Rusty performance after his 2 month lay-off, final pass not clinical enough on the counter, but put a shift in against an in-form City side, (NM)
Jack Grealish – 7
Quiet return from our enforced break, hard to get much time time on the ball at city but stuck to the task and was still our most creative outlet. (JH)
Bertrand Traore – 6
Had a tough night tracking back against Foden. Lively going forward, incredible touch from Martinez’ kick out. (SL)
Ollie Watkins – 6
Worked hard. Ran the channels well and was unlucky not to get an assist with Ramsey going close. (SL)
Substitutions:
El Ghazi (on for Barkley, 68th minute) – 5
Struggled to make any impact on the game.
Jacob Ramsey (on for Traore, 68th minute) – 6
So close to poking home his first senior goal for Villa, only for Dias to intercept with a last-ditch challenge.
Neil Taylor (on for Targett, 75th minute) – 5
Subs not used:
Heaton, Guilbert, Elmohamady, Nakamba, Davis, Engels
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