Aston Villa 4-3 Sunderland: Premier League Match Report

Seven goals, and Aston Villa 4-3 Sunderland was still in doubt until the end. Villa led 2-1 at the interval and the second half was shared 2-2, so the one-goal margin they carried in at the break was the margin they carried out at the end, with four more goals in between. Nothing about the afternoon was controlled by either side for long.

Villa had reason to want it more than the scoreline suggested. They came in fourth on 55 points from 32 matches with a goal difference of +5, three points clear of Liverpool below them and three behind Manchester United in third. Sunderland were 11th on 46 with -3, a promoted side having a season far better than expected and playing without pressure in either direction. That combination — one team with a European place at stake, one with nothing to protect — usually produces a cagey game. It produced this instead.

Villa's form made the need urgent. They had lost three of their previous five, 0-2 at Wolverhampton, 1-4 at home to Chelsea and 1-3 at Manchester United, and had drawn 1-1 at Nottingham. Sunderland had won three of five, all by a single goal and none with more than two goals conceded across the run. The reverse fixture in September had ended 1-1.

Villa moved to 58 points and a goal difference of +6, drawing level with Manchester United and putting five points between themselves and Liverpool with six rounds left. For a side who had taken four points from the previous fifteen, halting that at home and doing it against a team in decent order mattered more than the three conceded.

Sunderland stayed on 46 with the difference falling to -4. Their position was unchanged and their season remained an unambiguous success, but conceding four away at a top-four side ended a run in which they had been winning tight matches rather than open ones. Nine points had separated them at kick-off; twelve did afterwards.

Our pre-match call was Aston Villa Win at 1.55. It landed, and it was far closer to failing than a 1.55 shot ought to be. The case was a home side with a top-four incentive against visitors with none, and the incentive did show up — Villa scored four. What the reasoning missed entirely was the defensive state we should have read straight off the recent results: a team that had just conceded two, four and three in successive matches was not going to keep this tidy, and three at home to an 11th-placed side is a warning we got away with. Verdict: won