Unai Emery’s need to buy a new defender was exacerbated after Tyrone Mings, who only returned from more than a year out with an ACL injury in October, departed the field in tears in the first half to leave Ezri Konsa as Aston Villa’s only recognised senior centre-half for the last hour of this tetchy draw.
The Villa manager will have to make do and mend for this Wednesday’s crucial European game here against Celtic as, with Pau Torres out with a fractured foot and Diego Carlos having forced through a £10m move to Fenerbahce, the left-back Lucas Digne was asked to partner Konsa.
Although Mings returned to sit on the bench without crutches in the second half, he looked to be fearing the worst as he injured his left knee in a fair first-half tackle by Mohammed Kudus. West Ham, who lost here in the FA Cup in Graham Potter’s first game in charge a fortnight ago, capitalised on Villa’s strange decision to play the diminutive Digne at centre-back thereon in and deserved their headed equaliser from Emerson.
Emery reported that the initial reports were promising. “The first test we did I think it’s not a really bad injury for a long time. Tomorrow we will test again and we will know how bad his injury is.”
It was a feisty encounter; perhaps relations between the clubs had been affected by Villa’s irritation with West Ham’s £57m bid for Jhon Durán, their supersub, on the eve of last Tuesday’s defeat in Monaco.
Emery has been linked with a move for Juan Foyth, the former Tottenham defender whom Emery managed at Villarreal. “We are trying to be intelligent and make the relevant transfer window,” the Villa manager said afterwards. “I know Foyth because I worked with him, he has quality and the performance we want to add in the squad.”
This is the sixth successive time following Champions League action that Villa have failed to win in the league. Jacob Ramsey, the only change to the XI who kicked off the lacklustre defeat in Monaco on Tuesday, gave Villa the lead in the eighth minute with his first goal in the Premier League for 16 months.
Villa were already on the front foot when Ramsey played the ball in to Ollie Watkins and surged onto the return, his momentum taking him clean past Vladimir Coufal to strike a crisp, left-footed shot into the far bottom corner. “He’s one of our own,” sang the Holte End.
West Ham had not had more than a sniff of Villa’s goal in the opening half hour and, after a run of one win and four defeats in the last six games, looked set for a long and painful evening. The loss of Mings extracted the stuffing out of Villa, however.
They seemed to lose their cohesion, spirit and shape after he went off. Having started six games in a row, after returning from 446 days out with his last ACL injury, the England centre-back rocked his left knee when challenged, fairly but firmly, by Kudus, and fell awkwardly.
Although the former Villa captain carried on for a couple of minutes, he was clearly in discomfort, and, with his arms down on his thighs in despair, Villa Park stood to acclaim the unfortunate player as he made his way down the touchline, with his shirt held over his face to hide his dismay. He re-emerged to sit on the bench in the second half.
after newsletter promotion
A win over Celtic here on Wednesday should enable Villa to finish in the top eight of the Champions League, thus saving them two playoff games next month before the last 16.
Potter felt his side had already been coming back more into the game but acknowledged Mings’s departure was a turning point. “I thought we just grew into the game a little bit more,” the West Ham manager said. “Villa have to adjust so it affects them, obviously. But I thought from it was a period before that where we were starting to get a bit more of a foothold in the game.”
The second half continued in stop-start fashion before West Ham gradually took control. There was not much subtlety about their approach – nor did there need to be – as they worked the play as often as possible to cross from the right flank towards the back post.
Konsa had to clear off the line from Carlos Soler after Emiliano Martínez dropped Kudus’s cross; Emerson had already arrived late to miss one golden chance before he did score. Edson Álvarez clipped a ball from the inside-right channel and, sure enough, in came one of West Ham’s four starting full-backs to head in their equaliser.
The game finished in a frenetic, tired mess of end-to-end playground football, with West Ham looking the likelier to steal the extra points as Tomas Soucek headed over, Danny Ings, the former Villa striker, shot just wide, and Soucek was correctly given offside before he passed for Lucas Paquetá to turn the ball over the line.
Source: theguardian.com
