Aston Villa 2-0 Bolton Wanderers: Immediate Reaction

Aston Villa eased to a 2-0 victory to take a clueless, passion-devoid Bolton Wanderers side to just one win in their last 12 matches this evening. I suspect this will ramp up the pressure even further on Phil Parkinson, but it’s hard to blame the man when you look at the level of quality he’s working with compared that he’s coming up against. Just to prove this point... we brought on Lloyd Dyer, Josh Magennis and Christian Doidge, Villa brought on Yannick Bolasie.

Regardless of whether you blame Parkinson or not, Bolton were truly awful this evening. We gifted Villa an opening goal inside three minutes, when three players decided to let Jack Grealish walk through the middle of our defence totally unmarked and score a tap-in. Then the inevitable was only delayed when, later in the first half, a James Chester was totally unmarked only to see his header ruled out for offside.

However, after the break Chester did eventually settle the game. Joe Williams slid in for a challenge, clearly won the ball, and the referee gave a free-kick. From that free-kick Chester was clearly again offside but the linesman - get this - from a free-kick on the edge of the box, managed to be two yards behind the play. Go figure that one out. Chester headed home and it was game over.

Wanderers a decent amount of chances, but as usual the finishing touch was sadly lacking. Craig Noone - who was pretty awful, yet somehow lasted 90 minutes - somehow failed to get onto the end of a cross to the back post, Jack Hobbs had a header brilliantly cleared off the line by Chester, Lloyd Dyer should have done better with a chance towards the end, Josh Magennis put a decent chance wide.

But another failure to find the back of the net tonight makes it just one goal scored from our last three matches. Even more worryingly, we’ve only managed to score two goals in our last six matches, and just three goals in the last nine matches. It’s pretty obvious where the problem lies. Zero creativity and no-one capable of shooting, I can’t see us scoring ever again. And that’s being positive.

The good news is there’s some easy games ahead. Swansea at home up next. Then Millwall away. Brilliant. We’re doomed aren’t we?