Game 21: Sunday 28 December 1997
Leeds United 1 - 1 Aston Villa
(Half-time: 0 - 0)
Crowd: 36287
Referee: D J Gallagher (Banbury)
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FA
Carling Premiership Game 21: Sunday 28 December 1997 Leeds United 1 - 1 Aston Villa (Half-time: 0 - 0) Crowd: 36287 Referee: D J Gallagher (Banbury) |
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| « Liverpool | Oxford United » | |
| Match Facts | ||
| Teams | Unused Subs | |
| Leeds | Martyn, Robertson, Radebe, Wetherall, Wallace, Hasselbaink, Ribeiro (Lilley 5), Bowyer, Kewell, Maybury, Molenaar | Halle, Jackson, McPhail, Beeney |
| Aston Villa | Bosnich, Staunton, Ehiogu, Taylor, Draper, Milosevic, Wright, Nelson, Grayson, Scimeca, Byfield (Walker 90) | Charles, Hendrie, Collins, Oakes |
| Scorers | Other Info | |
| Leeds | Hasselbaink 79 | |
| Aston Villa | Milosevic 85 | |
| Yellow Cards | Red Cards | |
| Leeds | ||
| Aston Villa | Draper, Staunton, Byfield | |
| Match Statistics | ||
| Leeds | Aston Villa | |
| Corners won | 10 | 4 |
| Fouls committed | 13 | 12 |
| Hit woodwork | 0 | 0 |
| Offsides committed | 6 | 5 |
| Shirt numbers of goalscorers | 9 | 9 |
| Yellow cards | 0 | 3 |
| Red cards | 0 | 0 |
| Match Reports | |
| Fans' Reports | |
| Voice of Football | We're boring again |
| John Tomlinson | Villa game |
| Newspaper/Newswire Reports | |
| The Guardian | Villa's Eurocrats can timewaste for Britain |
| The Times | Milosevic earns Villa late reward |
| The Electronic Telegraph | Villa's draw low on quality |
| Links to Reports on the net | |
| Soccernet | Soccernet match report |
| Carlingnet | Carlingnet match report |
Scores:-
Martyn - 7
Maybury - 6
Robertson - 7
Radebe - 8
Weatherall - 8
Molenaar - 7
Yep, nowt wrong with the defence (except there was 5 of them)!
Bowyer - 8
A good game from our midfield (all 1 of him)
Kewell - 7
Wallace - 6
Lilley - 7 (improved immensely)
JFH - 4
(poor from our 4 man forward line)
So, individually OK, collectively crap. Someone else will explain no doubt.
Maybury (8) - The best I've seen him play. He worked hard and didn't look at all out of his depth. A real hope for the future.
Wetherall (9) - Really growing into the captain's role. He seems to be getting better and better. MOTM for me.
Molenaar (8) - Another great performance from Fat Bob. He has improved so much since his Blackburn business.
Robertson (7) - Again, one of his best performances to date. A few bad passes, but he really got stuck in and also made a few good passes.
Ribeiro - His game ended after 1 minute, with a tackle that Graham Poll would have applied a prison sentence for. Gallagher gave us a free kick.
Lilley (7) - The best I've seen of Lilley to date - sadly for him, Bruno's boots aren't easy to fill. He had a good game, played well with Kewell and Robertson, but wasn't ever a real force.
Kewell (7) - A quiet game on the whole, but he was frighteningly effective when he ran at the defence. I think he was (understandably) tired.
Bowyer (7) - A few really great passes - his ball to Jimmy cut the Villa defence in two, but there were far too many loose ones. I think he's trying too hard to do too much - he knows Leeds needs a playmaker and he's trying to fill those boots.
Radebe (8) - Not his best game, but I don't think midfield is his position. Great ball winner, broke up many a Villa attack and was never satisfied if they had the ball.
Wallace (7) - Ran a lot and caused the Villa defence a few problems but was never really a potent threat.
Hasselbaink (7) - Worked hard but missed a golden opportunity. A good goal but he needs to work on his celebratory flip - he doesn't look entirely steady on his landing.
Generally (7) - Villa could have won if they'd arrived at SOTG with any purpose. The Grauniad said that Leeds were there for the taking, and I think they were right.
The midfield is normally Kelly-Haaland-Hopkin-Ribeiro so obviously Lilley-Radebe-Kewell-Bowyer was a bit of a stopgap midfield.
Aston Villa (5) - The most cynical dull timewasting lazy nonsense I've ever seen. The fact that we didn't beat them was because they were good enough to win but weren't interested in doing so.
Referee (6) - He did book Staunton for timewasting eventually - but much too late in the game for it to make any difference. He was lenient, and I would prefer that to that fool Graham Poll, but he should have taken more control of the game than he did.
Crowd (10) - Excellent atmosphere. The best I've experienced at ER this season.
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There have been many excruciating days on the George Graham path to fulfilment and no doubt there will be many more to come. This was a largely unappealing contest between a Leeds side of limited means and an Aston Villa side of sparse ambition. It was hard to determine which was the most unappealing.
Leeds are making colourless progress. They have already scored more goals than they did throughout the whole of last season and one more yesterday at least maintained a top-six Premiership position that few had imagined possible at the start of the season.