Following Birmingham City and Leicester City’s recently wins, Aston Villa’s trip to face the Foxes had to result in 3 points for the Villans in order to maintain some distance from the bottom 2.
New loanee Anna Patten took her place alongside Anita Asante at centre back, with Pacheco and Mayling making up the rest of the back four. Villa youngster Laura Blindkilde-Brown earned herself another start after a solid effort against Manchester City, supported by Allen and Arthur. The team’s front three consisted of Lehmann, Petzelberger, and Hayles, while Emily Gielnik was busy representing Australia at the AFC Asian Cup.
Villa got off to the perfect start, taking the lead in the first minute through a Maz Pacheco corner. The left-back’s delivery proved too difficult for Leicester to deal with and forced an own goal from Molly Pike.
Leicester responded quickly to their mistake, calling the Villa defence into action almost immediately. Jessica Sigsworth made three attempts on goal before the 15th minute, which were fortunately dealt with by Villa keeper Hannah Hampton.
The remainder of the opening half was disrupted by scrappy fouls, both teams desperate to come out on top. Shania Hayles was the only one punished with a yellow card, but both teams paid the price in terms of maintaining momentum. Villa was frustrated further by several offside chances, one falling to Remi Allen and another to Shania Hayles, but Blindkilde was unlucky not to double the lead as her shot was saved from reaching the top corner.
Villa were on top going in at half-time, but perhaps could’ve given themselves a greater cushion. At 0-1, Leicester were very much in the game and they opened the second half with exactly that mentality.
Jessica Sigsworth continued to threaten Villa’s goal after the break, with the quality around her starting to show too. Leicester came out as the more attacking side, piling on the pressure until Hannah Hampton was forced into an error following a 76th minute corner, and registered an own goal to put the hosts level.
At 1-1, the final 15 minutes were end to end. Hampton was called into action several times more, unphased by conceding the equaliser. Villa’s final chances were less outright, until an injury-time attack led to a blocked ball falling to Alisha Lehmann on the right of the box. The winger stayed composed up against Demi Lambourne and powered the ball past her in the 93rd minute.
Lehmann’s last minute effort secured the 3 points for Aston Villa, and takes them up to 9th place in the table pending other results. It was an important game to further remove ourselves from the drop and end a run of four defeats. Lehmann is now off the mark in the league and will hopefully be able to support Gielnik on her return to England in Villa’s attacking line – the area that has lacked the most this season.
We now look to Sunday’s FA Cup game against the defending champions, Chelsea.
