With Villa’s first game of the Premier League season postponed due to both Manchester United & City’s European involvement, it allowed room for a final warn up game.
The game took place at Villa Park at 2pm on Saturday, with a full stream made available for supporters of both clubs later that evening.
As with the friendlies against Arsenal, Bristol City and Wycombe Wanderers, we have to be careful in terms of any over-analysis of the fixture.
In terms of some overall observations, Villa played ok in spells, but United enjoyed the lions share of possession. Solskjær’s side were also dangerous going forward, creating a number of opportunities to threaten Jed Steer’s goal.
JED STEER SAVE
However, Villa also tried to adopt a high press and this reaped rewards with a fine move involving Grealish, Trezeguet and finished with a bullet diving header from Ollie Watkins on his debut. This goal would ultimately prove to be the winner.
WATKINS DEBUT GOAL
Solskjær REACTION
Post match thoughts of Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær:
No post match comments have yet been made by Dean Smith following the victory.
LINE-UPS
Aston Villa XI:
Steer; Cash, Konsa, Mings, Targett; Hourihane, Luiz, McGinn, Trezeguet, Watkins, Grealish. On The Bench: Nyland, Sinisalo, Taylor, Elmohamedy, Lansbury, Nkamba, El Ghazi, Guilbert, Hause, Jota, Ramsey, Samatta, Davis.
Manchester United XI:
Dean Henderson; Diogo Dalot, Timothy Fosu-Mensah, Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw; Scott McTominay, Donny van de Beek; Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford, Daniel James; Odion Ighalo. On The Bench: Grant, Mengi, Williams, Galbraith, Garner, Elanga.
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What a great start for Ollie! I know it was only a friendly, but that’s want you want to see in your first game for the club.
The match reports I’ve seen bring up a couple of concerns – I believe United were claiming for a couple of penalties, including in the build up to Watkins’ goal – but consecutive friendly wins against Arsenal and United should give us plenty of confidence going into the opening games of the season.