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MOTD- Aston Villa 1-0 Chelsea

By on March 15, 2014

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was beaten at his own game. Amazing, but true.  Aston Villa clouded the midfield, defended their tails off, and then delivered a deadly blow to Chelsea on the counter-attack.  Mourinho used this exact tactic in tight situations at Porto, Internazionale, Real Madrid, and even the Chelsea side he was managing tonight, yet he let his side lose a vital three points to Paul Lambert’s Villa, who, as a club in the relegation battle, Chelsea will feel they should have easily defeated.

However, the club they beat 8-0 just a little over a year ago put in a valiant performance, in Mourinho’s disgust, not much unlike the ones he has managed with Chelsea.  The Blues dominated most of possession throughout the match, even in the early stages of their trip to Villa Park.  Yet Villa, noticing this, changed into a Christmas tree 4-3-2-1 formation, crowding out the midfield in which Chelsea usual loved to control, forcing Mourinho’s side to attack down the wings.  While Willian sent a whistling effort inches wide of the post from twenty-five yards out in the eleventh minute and Oscar curled the Brazilian’s lay-off wide of the post soon after, this tactic was wildly successful for Lambert’s side.

Villa nearly scored the opener themselves on the counter-attack, with Christian Benteke sending a spectacular scissor-kick from the edge of the box bouncing around the wrong side of the post in the thirty-eighth minute.  But the Lion’s did keep Chelsea at bay, and only began to push forward again when the visitors legs became weary in the second half.   And then, they came at Chelsea with their full weight.

Benteke whipped a low shot from twenty yards inches wide of the post in the sixty-sixth minute, yet Villa would only rue the miss for a few moments as they were handed a boatload of luck when Willian was controversially sent off for the slightest of taps on the legs of Delph, who went sprawling out onto the ground.  This was when Villa really came at Chelsea.

Ron Vlaar so nearly put Villa up in the eighty-first minute with a glancing header that sent a corner centimeters over the crossbar, and just seconds later Villa were at it again when Marc Albrighton was slipped in down the left side of the box by Delph.  This time though, Villa capitalized on the chance as Delph dangled a leg out behind him to flick a deflected back-flick into the bottom corner at the far post from Albrighton’s cut-back.  The midfielder had a chance to bury the win in the ninety-second minute, only to see his low shot bounce out off the leg of a charging Petr Cech.  Yet the match was basically over when Ramires saw Chelsea’s second red card of the match for a terrible late stamp on Karim El Ahmadi.  It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyhow, as the final whistle blew just two minutes later following a major ruckus on the touchline, in which Mourinho was also sent to the stands.  Not how the Portugese manager would have wanted to spend the final moments of a crucial match in the race for the Premier League title.
Man of the Match: Fabian Delph

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.