Aston Villa controlled much of the ball at Villa Park but left empty-handed after a 1-0 defeat to Everton. Thierno Barry scored the only goal, following a spilled save from Emiliano Mart\u00ednez and finishing with a composed lob that completed his third goal in four matches and secured three points for the visitors.<\/p>\n
The loss ended Villa\u2019s 11-game home winning run and was their first defeat at Villa Park since September. They remain third in the table, seven points behind Arsenal and behind City on goal difference.<\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez was given a 6.1 for his role in the decisive moment, spilling Dwight McNeil\u2019s curling effort into Barry\u2019s path. Other ratings reflected a mixture of control and frustration: Youri Tielemans 7.9 for shielding the defence and dictating play; Matty Cash 7.2 for energy down the right; Ian Maatsen 7.0 for his forward intent; and Ollie Watkins 5.7 after a quiet game with just one shot on target. Morgan Rogers was rated 5.8 and was described as wasteful by his standards after missing several promising chances.<\/p>\n
Evann Guessand replaced John McGinn early and was given 6.9; Guessand returned from AFCON and rattled the crossbar after coming on. Lucas Digne (73′) was rated 6.3 and George Hemmings (73′) 6.0. Subs not used included James Wright (GK), Marco Bizot (GK), Andres Garcia, Tyrone Mings, Victor Lindel\u00f6f and Jamaldeen Jimoh.<\/p>\n
Villa dominated possession and territory for long spells but Everton\u2019s compact shape and organisation kept the hosts at bay. The Toffees thought they had taken the lead in the 35th minute when James O\u2019Brien nodded in, only for the goal to be ruled out for offside involving Harrison Armstrong.<\/p>\n
It took just 11 seconds for sparks to fly when a long Jordan Pickford ball was knocked down by Barry and Merlin R\u00f6hl struck the post, the quickest woodwork hit in a Premier League match since 2006-07. Yet Villa could not convert territorial advantage into goals, and a single defensive lapse proved costly.<\/p>\n
Match statistics (selected): Possession 62% to 38% (Villa), xG 0.82 to 0.34, Shots on target 3 to 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Villa dominated possession but lost 1-0 to Everton after Emiliano Mart\u00ednez spilled a shot. at Villa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,687,172],"tags":[1162,1305],"class_list":["post-6056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-everton","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-bench-selection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}