Key events
48 mins: Watkins and Kilman both go for the same header, and they both end up on the ground as well.
47 mins: Turns out Digne is OK, to nobody’s great surprise.
46 mins: It’s Lucas Digne. It looks like Paqueta trod on his foot, or at least some of his foot.
46 mins: Peeeeep! Play restarts, and it takes precisely nine seconds for someone to throw himself to the ground screaming.
The players are back out and they’re about to play more football!
“We aren’t out of this by long chalk,” trills Ian Sargeant. That’s the spirit! “Villa look affected by the Mings injury and if we can sneak one back (Soucek from a set piece? ) we could be in here.
Not a fan of Paqueta hitting the ground so often. That was naughty at the free kick. My mind goes back to the same fixture at Upton park in the 80s. Peter Withe and Billy Bonds got stuck into each other – both ended up on the floor – and you sensed that one of them would lump the other to get the first blow in. Instead after an initial wrestle they both got up and danced a few steps together.”
Half time: Aston Villa 1-0 West Ham
45+10 mins: Half time has happened. Villa absolutely thrashed West Ham for 15 minutes or so, and scored a goal while they were doing so, but the away side have worked their way back into the game since then and it’s still completely up for grabs.
45+9 mins: Now Digne is down. This game quite badly needs half-time to happen, it’s just turned a bit silly.
45+8 mins: The ball eventually comes in, bounces around a bit, and is volleyed wide by Paqueta.
45+7 mins: Now Cash is on the ground. He did get properly shoved by Soucek, and the referee has a chat with them both.
45+6 mins: Looks like Digne lightly tapped him with an elbow while players jostled waiting for the free-kick. VAR looks at it and decides he’s not bothered by it.
45+6 mins: Now Paqueta’s on the ground, presumably trying to draw attention to an off-the-ball incident.
45+5 mins: A first booking of the game, Tielemans booked for fouling Paqueta (though it looks like Ramsey did the fouling). And then Cresswell talks his way into joining him.
45+3 mins: Cash is fouled on the right and the free-kick leads to a chaotic minute or two, challenges (mostly clean) flying in and possession changing hands, which ends only when Cash is fouled again on the right.
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time and there’ll be plenty of it. Six minute, to be precise.
43 mins: Wan-Bissaka crosses to Alvarez, who chests it down, half-volleys well over the bar, and is then given offside.
41 mins: Kudus runs up behind Tielemans and knocks him down like a skittle. The referee waves play on while the midfielder lies on the ground and West Ham attack for a while, boos ringing out once they finally lose the ball.
38 mins: Ian Maatsen comes on, and will play at left-back with Digne moving to the middle. Here’s Mings on the ACL injury he suffered in August 2023, speaking after his first league start after his recovery, against Brentford just last month:
It was [the journey back] awful, absolutely awful. But I’ve done it before and I did it again. I was always wondering what was keeping me going, whether it was nights like tonight, family, or personal pride. It was a little bit of everything. When times get tough, you ask, ‘What am I still doing this for?’
“The messages I had from them (supporters), was really heartwarming and played a big part. I thank the Villa fans for that because the roar when your name is called out and all of those things add up to my journey back.
36 mins: Mings pulls up again, and this will be the end of his game. He looks pretty distraught about it.
35 mins: Chance! Villa have a free-kick on the left. Tielemans sends it into the area, Watkins heads it narrowly wide.
33 mins: Play has restarted, and Mings is back on the field.
32 mins: Mings is up, and limping towards the touchline. He’s not immediately being substituted.
29 mins: Mings is down and clutching his left knee, after he tries to pass the ball out of defence just as Kudus comes across to block him.
27 mins: Now Tielemans has a shot from just outside the area, a decent hit with his left foot but it runs a foot wide.
25 mins: Digne crosses and Watkins heads at goal, but he gets no power on it and Areola catches.
22 mins: One pass out of defence from Tielemans finds Rogers just outside the centre circle, and he turns to find himself part of a three-on-three break. He carries the ball to the edge of the area then overhits a pass to Bailey which runs out of play.
20 mins: West Ham play out of the Villa press pretty smartly, and having done so win themselves a corner, which is cleared.
18 mins: It has been several minutes now since West Ham looked like they were almost certain to imminently concede a goal, so that’s something. In statistical news, with his assist Watkins made his 100th goal contribution for Villa, in his 200th game.
15 mins: Half a chance for Lucas Paqueta, but instead of lashing the ball goalwards he tries to lift the ball over Mings’ head, and fails.
15 mins: West Ham have just had a shot, though. Alvarez with it, from 20 yards or so. It hit a defender. “More than any other fixture, this one provides clarety in a confusing world,” quips Peter Oh.
14 mins: A few minutes back I said West Ham had had a goal disallowed when it was, obviously, Aston Villa. Apologies.
11 mins: Bailey cuts in from the right and shoots at Areola. The opening period of this game could not have been more one-sided. “We’re trying to find the right balance between defence and attack,” Graham Potter said. Well, keep looking.
11 mins: Villa have a goal disallowed! Kudus loses the ball, Watkins is played in and his low cross/shot is turned in by Rogers, but Watkins was offside.
10 mins: And another chance! Watkins has the ball in the area and passes back to Kamara on the edge, but Alvarez blocks his shot
GOAL! Aston Villa 1-0 West Ham (Ramsey, 8 mins)
Now Villa take the lead, and it has been coming! Ramsey plays a one-two with Watkins, outpaces Coufal and slides a left-footed shot across the keeper and in at the far post!
7 mins: Now Rogers gets in down the right and tries to square to Watkins, but Kilman gets in the way of that as well!
5 mins: Goal-saving tackle from Max Kilman! It was a nice rat-a-tat interplay of passes from Villa to turn a throw-in of their own into a chance for Ramsey, but the pass into him wasn’t perfect and gave Kilman a chance to get in the way, if he nailed his sliding challenge. Which he did.
3 mins: West Ham put two passes together for the first time in the game. In doing so they’ve managed to win an attacking throw-in, which Coufal flings into the box and somebody heads out again.
1 min: Peeeeeep! Aston Villa get the ball rolling.
Just before kick-off, here’s Jacob Steinberg’s report on Tottenham’s latest misfortune:
Away from the mutinous chants pouring down from the south stand, the unmistakeable disgust with Daniel Levy and the gathering angst around Ange Postecoglou, it was possible to forget about Leicester. Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side have endured a horrible winter and, when they found themselves behind to a fragile Tottenham at half-time, they had the look of a group waiting for the sweet release of relegation.
At that stage they were on their way to their eighth consecutive defeat in the Premier League, equalling a club record set in the 2000-01 season. If history was a guide, though, then playing Spurs was good news for Van Nistelrooy. After all Leicester stopped the rot by beating them 4-2 at Filbert Street 24 years ago. It meant there was almost a grim inevitability to how this match unfolded. In control after Richarlison’s header, it was astonishing to see an injury-hit Spurs collapse in the first five minutes of the second half, 1-0 becoming 1-2 thanks to goals from Jamie Vardy and Bilal El Khannous.
Much more here:
The players are in the tunnel. Kick-off is just a few minutes away!
Jonathan Wilson was at Selhurst Park to see Brentford pinch victory. Here’s his match report:
For Brentford, there was a measure of relief. It’s probably fair to say that the run of one win in nine games in which they went into this weekend was not representative of how they’d played but, still, it’s as well to stifle as early as possible any thought that they were going through a mid-winter slump similar to last season’s. Survival may not quite be mathematically assured but breaking the 30-point mark with 15 games remaining makes it almost certain they will be in the Premier League next season.
After a slow start, the game was rather better than the conditions. It was an afternoon of truly filthy weather, a raw morning yielding to heavy rain, a blustery breeze, and skies of unremitting grey. It was an afternoon to be grateful for modern drainage, the pitch remaining slick and green throughout. With Brentford in a blancmange pink and aubergine away kit that evoked the once-aspirational bathroom in a seedy bedsit in which terrible things have happened from an 80s crime drama, the overall effect was of almost artistic bleakness, a sort of Croydon Noir.
Much more here:
“I can’t think of a more defensive West Ham team in my lifetime,” says Jamie Redknapp. “I guess he just wants to make sure they’re difficult to beat. I think he’s looking at it thinking, let’s get control of midfield and then you hope [someone] can do something special. He just hasn’t got the players at his disposal and most of the players that are fit are defensive ones”
Graham Potter has a pre-match chat:
We’re trying to find the right balance between defence and attack, trying to get the team stable. We have to get that balance. But I’m really happy with how the group have taken on the ideas. We’re at the start and we need to keep working.
Whenever you come in January the ideal scenario would be everything’s calm and we’ve no problems or challenges and obviously that’s not the case. But we’ve got a team we’ve been working with this week and a team we’ve been happy with. All you can do is focus on the players you have and keep working.
In the early afternoon kick-offs Brentford have beaten Crystal Palace 2-1 away from home, and Leicester have done the same to Tottenham. The league table in full:
Looks like a pretty dismal day in Birmingham. Let’s hope we get some sunshine football, or something.
The teams!
The team sheets have been handed in, and here is the news. Ollie Watkins starts again, with Duran on the bench for Villa, with Leon Bailey and Lucas Digne the new faces from the team that drew with Arsenal. West Ham bring in Alphonse Areola in goal, and Vladimir Coufal and Carlos Soler out of goal.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Digne, Tielemans, Kamara, Bailey, Rogers, Ramsey, Watkins. Subs: Olsen, Zych, McGinn, Duran, Buendia, Garcia, Malen, Maatsen, Bogarde.
West Ham: Areola, Coufal, Kilman, Cresswell, Wan-Bissaka, Alvarez, Soler, Emerson Palmieri, Lucas Paqueta, Soucek, Kudus. Subs: Fabianski, Foderingham, Luis Guilherme, Ings, Rodriguez, Irving, Casey, Scarles, Orford.
Referee: Peter Bankes.
Hello world!
“Of course, West Ham, they are not being consistent, but they have now a new coach. Tactically, they are going to improve,” said Unai Emery on Friday. We’re about to find out how much improvement they’ve managed, but Villa have some improving to do: sure, they’re eighth in the table which is fine “(“The most important for us is the Premier League, and to be in the table’s top eight positions,” Emery added), and have lost only one of their last five league games, but away from home they’re not so hot: two wins and five defeats in their last eight in the league, which would put them 16th in a notional last-eight-away-from-home table (in mitigation, those fixtures included visits to Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea and Liverpool). Emery said their ambition was to “try to be consistent like we are at the moment at home”, where they would be sixth and unbeaten in a last-eight-games table.
Graham Potter also thinks West Ham are going to improve. “Our ambition is there – we want to get better. We want to move towards a style of play that our supporters recognise and are fond of,” he said at his press conference on Friday. “It has been nice to have a decent stretch of training. We have managed to do some good work, analyse the last game and prepare for Aston Villa, so I think we have used the time well. In every training session and after every message, I think the intention has been there.”
This will be an ideal test of their improvement since Potter’s arrival, and what he’s managed to achieve with that decent stretch of training: these teams played here in the FA Cup a couple of weeks ago, a day after he was unveiled as Julen Lopategui’s replacement, and Villa won 2-1.
Since then West Ham have beaten Fulham 3-2 (in a game where they had four shots overall and only three on target) and lost 2-0 to Crystal Palace (in a game where they had four shots overall and none at all on target). For context, last season the average Premier League game featured 27.2 shots in total. Since Christmas West Ham have had a total of 11 shots on target across six games, while conceding 15 goals at the other end. It’s obvious where that improvement needs to be demonstrated. So, let’s see how they’ve got on, shall we?