By Up The Boro Man
March 5 2005

The Villa fans dusted down the banners for their annual protest against chairman Doug Ellis in this televised lunchtime clash. Twenty thousand red cards had been given out to the fans and the plan was to wave them at Ellis in an attempt to get rid of him. I bet he was terrified. Read The Freedom Bear's Villa match prediction right here...



DULL, DULL, DULL

The Villa fans dusted down the banners for their annual protest against chairman Doug Ellis in this televised lunchtime clash. Twenty thousand red cards had been given out to the fans and the plan was to wave them at Ellis in an attempt to get rid of him. I bet he was terrified.

The opening six minutes were very untidy and nothing resembling a chance materialised for either side.

Villa eventually started to string more than one pass together and Boro had their first half chance when Bolo Zenden finally came into the game. But the first shot came from Villa when Solana's neat lay on was blasted wide by Gareth Barry.

Solano was a menace and it wasn't long after that he panicked Franck Queudrue into giving away a corner. But Boro weathered the preceding storm, Nash being the only keeper to have played a part so far.

On fifteen minutes, Hasselbaink and Zenden combined well but the resulting corner was wasted. As was another one that The Lizard did well to win.

Conviction was lacking from both sides and when the ball did break out of a clogged up midfield, there was nobody available with enough cutting edge to make any sort of breakthrough.

Villa probed in the last seven minutes of the half but created little danger and Carlo Nash needed only to perform academic moves.

This was a half that contained little structure and even less entertainment. We could only hope for a better second half. It couldn't be much worse than the first...

Fan Reaction: "Not one shot on target from either side. What a waste of money."
"Bring on Danny Graham. It's the only way we'll score today..."

THE SECOND HALF...

No personnel or formation changes took place during the interval. Boro won an early corner with Jimmy and Bolo yet again linking up together to produce the shooting opportunity. It was a much brighter start to the second and Boro were now starting to shoot on target.

An offside flag and a linesman's handball signal snuffed out two further Boro chances of which Zenden was involved in both.

Boos rang around the stadium as Barry was penalised for pulling Parnaby back. The free kick was wasted and we ended up lucky to be still level after Vassell made a scorching run and found Solano who missed an open goal. Must be something about the West Midlands. Was he Kanu in disguise?

The game was speeding up now and Boro looked slightly the hungrier. But Vassell was replaced by Luke Moore and immediately, Villa looked the sharper side as Danny Graham warmed up for Boro.

Downing found himself with central space on 59 minutes but shot high over the bar. That was the catalyst for SMc but even though the rest of the bench were now warming up, no changes were made.

Gareth Southgate saved us with a fantastic sliding tackle on Lee Hendrie in the 65th minute but he wasn't around two minutes later to stop Laursen bundling the ball past Nash to give Villa the lead. Very disappointing but we had not really looked positive at all up to now.

The Lizard's day was over just before the restart as Danny Graham replaced him up front.

And he nearly levelled it within twe minutes as Jimmy played him through for a one-on-one chance against the keeper who was lucky to get a hand to the shot and tip it to safety.

And as a contest, the game seemed to die again after that. A near twenty minute passage of play took place that was completely forgettable and produced no noteable incidents whatsoever.

But things got worse on 78 minutes when a debatable free kick was floated in and Lee Hendrie found the ball, foxed our messy defence and slotted home. Two down with 12 to play. It looked all over for us...

INTO THE RED ZONE...

Joseph Job made a cameo appearance with eight minutes to play and it was Stewey Downing who made way for him.

And a strong Villa attack left the home crowd gasping as Luke Moore's deflected shot went just wide for a corner. They were looking for a third and we were looking like we would be lucky to escape with nil.

It is to be hoped that Sporting Lisbon were watching this as it was not real Boro on the Villa Park pitch today. Hopefully, real Boro will be playing on Thursday night.

Fan Reaction: "I just hope this isn't the start of us crumbling."
"We played negative and got a negative result. We were absolute shite!"
"Steve Gibson should fine the lot of them two weeks wages for that..."

Packwolf's report will be appearing on ComeOnBoro.com later in the week

There will be plenty of strong opinions in The New Holgate tonight... Let's have your say on the match...

More comment on today's match can be found in The "Bloody Rubbish!" Column, published this evening and in The James Bassett Column, published Monday morning.

The Boro Bard's Boro v Villa poem will be published on The Boro Bard site in the next few hours.