By Ryan Ghee
November 1 2005

Former Aston Villa striker Darius Vassell came back to haunt his former club as his double inspired City to a 3-1 win. The former Villan scored his first after only three minutes of the game and doubled his tally on 26 minutes. Although Liam Ridgewell provided Villa with a glimmer of hope with 25 minutes remaining, Andy Cole sealed the win with a fortunate goal in the closing stages and condemned Villa to their sixth defeat of the season.

Aston Villa's evening got off to a bad start even before kick-off as goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen twisted his ankle in the pre-match warm-up and was ruled out of the match.

With Stuart Taylor deputising and making his Villa debut, he would have hoped for a solid start which could give him some much needed confidence. Unfortunately, the debutant got the exact opposite.

With less than 3 minutes on the clock, Taylor and Samuel had a terrible mix-up at the back and Darius Vassell was presented with a gift from his former team-mates. With the ball bouncing harmlessly towards the Villa 18-yard box, Stuart Taylor rushed hastily from his goal only to be lobbed by a header from team-mate Jlloyd Samuel, and Vassell, hardly able to believe his luck, stroked the ball into the empty net.

After the early calamity, the Villa defence continued to look shaky and their hosts took advantage of more lacklustre defending in the 26th minute as Vassell doubled his tally.

Following a long, hopeful ball forward from Danny Mills, Andy Cole cleverly flicked the ball towards Vassell who did the move justice by volleying the ball into the corner of Stuart Taylor's goal.

It was City who continued to dominate for the rest of the half with Villa's only decent opening coming in the 40th minute as David James pushed Davis' powerful effort out for a corner.

David O'Leary decided to replace the hopeless Jlloyd Samuel at the break and his replacement, Patrik Berger, brought some much-needed energy to the Villa side.

The Czech international continually caused problems for the City defence in the second half and his effort was rewarded in the 65th minute as his left-wing cross eluded the home side's defence and Liam Ridgewell bundled the ball home from close-range.

With The Villans starting to believe in the possibility of a comeback, they pushed forward but were continually denied by City's solid back-line.

To make the task even more difficult, the influential Patrik Berger picked up a knock with a quarter of an hour remaining and was forced out of the action; effectively ending any chance of a Villa revival.

After Berger's departure, the home side regained control of the match and with 7 minutes remaining, Andy Cole wrapped up the points with a deflected effort from the edge of the box.

The striker optimistically drilled the ball towards Taylor's goal and, with the aid of a wicked deflection off Mark Delaney, the Villa keeper's nightmare debut was completed as he helplessly watched the ball loop over his head and into the net.

Speaking after the game, O'Leary refused to defend his team's performance as he labelled it "disgraceful, an absolute joke."