Aston Villa 3 Luton Town 1 – Late Fightback Not Quite Enough

If this game had the regulation 15 extra minutes other Premier League games are entitled to, The Town could well have made it 3-3. As it was, an unusually cautious Luton side could not recover from the damage of being three goals down. The last ten minutes however gave the 3,000 away fans even more to cheer, having comprehensively outsung their Midlands opponents for the entire duration of the contest.

A first visit to Villa Park and for an old ground they have done well to modernise it. A proper good atmosphere walking past The Holte over from Star City, a strange old place full of eateries. Great sight lines, and good banter between the fans before, during, and after the game.

Luton started slowly, Villa dominated possession, and we were thinking can we get to 20 minutes without conceding. Then it could be like Everton when we could grab a goal and gain that confidence. But on 18 minutes a Villa free kick was cleverly played across the box, McGinn shimmied to his other foot, and stroked the opener home. The fella behind us warned as the free kick was taken there were 3 Villa men free edge of the box, and sure enough one of them scored.

Second goal, a Digne cross, header missed and ball fell to Diaby who fired into the corner. Third goal, a ball from the centre played over to substitute Bailey whose run wasn’t tracked (although difficult to track Bailey as he is very quick) and Tommy Tommy could not do anything other than turn the ball into his own net from a yard out.

Then Luton started to play, particularly when Townsend and Pelly came on. A lovely cross from Townsend – who had been practising them constantly during half time – was headed onto the Villa post by their own defender Konsa under a challenge from Elijah, and the ricochet then hit the Russell Kane lookalike Martinez before nestling in the net.

There was time for Barkley to steal the ball on the edge of the box but just as he looked like opening his Luton account, a late block deflected it wide. Elijah also had an effort deflected over.

Villa had won 11 straight home games before this encounter and looked an incredibly well-coached outfit. So Luton will have easier days, starting with Liverpool in just over a week’s time. As the clocks have gone back reasonable to think it will under the lights at the Kenny, and we could be set for a magical, magical night.

Town: Kaminski; Kaboré, Doughty (sub Giles 79), Lockyer, Osho (sub Townsend 57), Mengi; Nakamba (sub Mpanzu 76), Barkley; Ogbene, Morris (sub Adebayo 76), Brown (sub Chong 57). 

Subs not used: Krul, Woodrow, Johnson, Luker. 

By Sammo