[Post Match Thread] Aston Villa 4-3 Sunderland
Well that was quite a game. One that should've been controlled but ended up giving us a huge hit of dopmine as we almost turned a certain 3 points, into 1, into 0, then into 3 in the space of 5 minutes. Let me explain. First half Villa scored very early on with Watkins scoring from McGinns lobbed cross. Rigg scored a few minutes later after Sadiki set Rigg up for him to place it into the net. Before the break Watkins scored his second after Maaten set up Watkins for his second header. In the second half we were largely in control, (thank you /u/EngimaT1m) and kicked off the second half in style, as McGinn intercepted the ball at the halfway mark, passed to Barkley, then to Watkins who then first time passed found the run of the overlapping Rogers to score our third. We had more chances to score during the second half but those became more challenging after Ballard came on. We also made some subs, and the one that was impactful was Sancho... for Sunderland. In the 85th minute, Hume intervened Sancho in our right side defence, Hume went forward and curled it into the top right corner. From kick off, Sancho again lost the ball to Le Fee, who sent a through ball to Isidor and he scored the one on one to make it 3-3. In the 92nd minute Diarra also had a one on one, but this time Martinez did an amazing job in stopping that shot, giving Villa time for one more opportunity which was crossed in by Digne and poked in by Abraham. Wow. What a rush, what an end to the game.
MOTM goes to Watkins. Absolutely changed man since the International Break and again today was the difference. Great movement, great positioning, was involved in almost everything and secord a brace. Rogers is a close second, created a ton and those goals did come from Rogers involvement. Credit to Onana as well for really giving us more solidity in defence, protecting the backline and also in build up play.
Huge, huge result considering Chelsea's result yesterday. We're still in 3rd place with 58 points. Tied with United, 3 points ahead of Liverpool and crucially now 10 points ahead of Chelsea. Mathematically we need 5 points (if we have a better GD) to guarantee Champions League, 6 points to make it definitive in the last remaining 5 games. We're in pole position now for that place.
Results around us
Man. City vs Arsenal
Everton 1-2 Liverpool