• yesterday
Birmingham World reporter Charlie Haffenden reacts to Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-0 Aston Villa in the Premier League.
Transcript
00:00Wolverhampton Wanderers 2, Aston Villa 0 and the local derby here at Molyneux has gone the host's way.
00:07Surprisingly so, coming into this one Wolves were in the relegation zone, Aston Villa just a few points outside the top 4
00:13looking to take advantage of Newcastle United's defeat to Fulham.
00:16But Unai Emery's team unable to do that, Vitor Pereira's coming out on top.
00:21The opening goal of the game from Jean-Ric Mbelegaard was very deserved as the host got off to a fantastic start.
00:27A very nice finish from Mbelegaard into the near post.
00:30Beating Emi Martínez would be very disappointing to be beaten at that near post.
00:34It was a great through ball and Gubbikar Kamara playing as an auxiliary centre-half for Aston Villa was caught off guard.
00:41The likes of Yuri Tieleman and Lamar Bogard were also dragged in, sucked into the action of the four-hands.
00:47Villa appalling defensively but Wolves very clinical and deserved their goal.
00:51The hosts gained great confidence from opening the scoring
00:54and potentially could have had 2, 3 or 4 before half-time.
00:57Gonzalo Guedes played through on goal on several occasions,
01:00Mateus Cunha as well, Cunha dispossessing Kamara in one instance,
01:04going clean through but Emi Martínez made a fine save.
01:07Going into second half Emery must have been very frustrated at half-time as he made four substitutions.
01:13One of those, Daniel Marlon, made an instant impact or so we thought as he found the back of the net.
01:19It was a very clever set-piece from Villa just on the outside of the area.
01:23John McGinn is played to by Leon Bailey with a short free kick out on the left.
01:28McGinn plays it across the face of goal and Marlon taps home.
01:31Villa fans go wild and the flag is up on the near side.
01:35You're thinking, alright, what's this for then? Is it Marlon? Is he offside?
01:39The replay showed he was on so what's the problem here?
01:42Are VAR going to overturn it? Is he going to be given after all?
01:44Then Morgan Rodgers is the judge to be in an offside position.
01:48Yes, he was offside but they're saying he interfered with play and stopped Samedo from tracking back.
01:54Having watched it two, three, four times afterwards, I don't think Rodgers even makes any contact with Samedo
01:59so I'm not quite sure what the Premier League are seeing there.
02:01It's really cost Villa because they could have won all, they could have had confidence and gone on to win the game potentially
02:07but they weren't given that opportunity.
02:09To be fair to Wolves, they did defend very well throughout that second half.
02:13They sat deep, they defended resiliently.
02:15Vito Pereira marching instructions on the near side.
02:18A lot of their players running their stocks off for their team to try and hold on to those points.
02:22Villa went very close at the end, twice through Marlon who has his shot saved by Jose Sarr, unable to find the net.
02:29And then right at the end, Mateus Cunha doubling Wolves' advantage and making sure of all three points.
02:34The counter-attack, there are quite a few Wolves throughout the game on the transition looking very dangerous.
02:40Ezra Konza appeared to get back just in time and he jockeyed Cunha.
02:44But Cunha somehow works in space to find the ball onto the right-hand side, onto his favoured right foot
02:51and he swung it into the far bottom left-hand corner.
02:54Molineux went absolutely crazy.
02:56I've not seen this loud in such a long time.
02:58Such an important three points for them as they go out of the relegation zone.
03:02Villa meanwhile, they must go back to the drawing board and probably need to sign a defender
03:06given how some of their defenders played this evening.

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