Saturday’s 2-1 victory against Manchester City might not have heralded the same fanfare as last December’s 1-0 triumph over the same opponents, in large part because Pep Guardiola’s team are so clearly a faded force.
Yet in the context of a Villa season which had become riddled with inconsistency, this was the perfect performance and result to restore confidence both in the stands and on the pitch, a reminder to Unai Emery’s men of just how good they can be when everything comes together.
Guardiola, who has now seen his own unit beaten in nine of their last 12 matches, later claimed City performed better than they had at Villa Park a year ago.
That might well be true. This time, City actually scored. But while Phil Foden’s goal deep into stoppage time might have caused a few hearts to flutter among the more nervous of the home side’s support, the truth is Villa’s win rarely looked in doubt from the moment Jhon Duran fired them in front 16 minutes in.
Morgan Rogers then got what proved to be the winner midway through the second half but all that prevented the margin of victory being greater was some bad luck and the reflexes of visiting keeper Stefan Ortega.
Twice inside the opening minute of the match the German prevented Villa from breaking the deadlock, first denying Duran and then producing a brilliant reflex stop to keep out Pau Torres’ header. Rogers also hit the post before scoring, while Duran saw an effort ruled for a marginal offside call. True, Villa’s Emi Martinez produced a smart stop of his own to deny Foden in the first half but in general play, particularly in the second half, there was a gulf in class between the two teams which for so much of their respective recent history would have been unthinkable.
No player typified it more than Rogers. The 22-year-old never really came close to making a first-team appearance during four years with City before being sold to Middlesbrough for a fee of less than £2million less than 18 months ago. As Pep Guardiola rightly later pointed out, it would be wrong to dwell too much on that decision, considering the heights his team were hitting at the time.
By the same token, Rogers is precisely the type of player he would love to have in his ranks right now. For much of the afternoon, he bullied City’s weary defence and midfield, who could do nothing to stop his driving runs which turned defence into attack. Foden and then, in the build-up to the second goal, Mateo Kovacic both found themselves on the floor after attempting to do so. With Rogers and Duran up against Ilkay Gundogan and Kyle Walker this felt like a battle between the new stars and the old guard and youth emphatically won the day.
Duran has now scored in four consecutive matches and now has 12 in all competitions for the season, including one in each of the six games he has started. Bayern Munich’s Jamal Musiala is the only player aged 21 and under in Europe’s top-five leagues to have netted more. Just at this moment the debate surrounding who should start up front for Villa feels rather redundant. Saturday was probably Duran’s most complete performance for the club so far, indication of how Emery can increasingly depend on him to deliver.
While the Colombia international and Rogers might have grabbed the headlines, the secret to Villa’s success on Saturday lay in a midfield engine room which for the first time saw Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara paired together from the start.
Emery’s decision to splash out a club record £50m on Onana might have been motivated primarily by the need to add more steel to an XI which had lost much of its defensive consistency when Kamara was lost to injury for the final months of last season.
But what also attracted him to the Belgium international was a belief both players would dovetail nicely together and Saturday’s showing indicated those instincts were likely correct. With Onana and Kamara patrolling the middle of the pitch, Youri Tielemans was provided a new lease of life in a more advanced position. It was the latter who created the opener with a defence-splitting pass from his own half of the pitch which sent Rogers racing toward goal, the latter teeing up Duran for a simple finish.
It was Kamara who also helped neutralise the threat of Jack Grealish, who had enjoyed some success when left one against one with Matty Cash in the first half but found the road blocked by the added presence of the covering France international.
Preparation time also felt significant. The seven-day gap between the previous weekend’s defeat at Nottingham Forest afforded Emery his longest time to work with players on the training pitch since August. Rogers even later remarked how it had been nice to work on a gameplan in practice, rather than simply discuss it in a meeting room. It should perhaps be no surprise it led to Villa’s best performance and result of a season which until then had seen them beat only one team currently in the top half of the table.
Alas, it was only a brief respite from the relentless schedule. Villa head to Newcastle on Thursday to face another European contender at a venue where they have not won for nearly two decades. At least they approach the challenge feeling a whole lot better about themselves than a week ago.