Carew exploits destroy Bolton
Aston Villa 5
Bolton 1
Sunday November 08 2009
Aston Villa's biggest win of the season lifted them to within a point of the Champions League places, but more than reinforcing Martin O'Neill's ambitions, this match strengthened Bolton's credentials as relegation candidates.
Villa had begun the day eight places above Gary Megson's men, but the fact that so far this season they had scored only one goal more than their humble visitors backed up critics who claim they will not infiltrate the top four because they are essentially a counter-attacking unit who lack the creativity regularly to cut open well-drilled defences.
They did not have to disprove that to batter Bolton, whose plan to scrounge a point was sabotaged by wretched defending.
Within five minutes, lackadaisical defending helped the hosts into the lead. James Milner was granted too much time to size up a cross and duly lofted the ball in from the right wing to John Carew, whose header was spilled by Jussi Jasskelainen. Ashley Young reacted quicker than any Bolton player to bang the rebound into the net from close range.
Without having to excel, Villa became dominant, Bolton's lifelessness so exasperating their manager that Megson did not even wait until half-time to make a substitution, introducing a second striker, Johan Elmander, in place of Tamir Cohen after 30 minutes.
The pattern, however, remained the same and in the 42nd minute Villa exploited more slack defending to hit a second. As former Villa trainee Gary Cahill tried to shepherd the ball out of play, Carew stole it and pulled it back to Agbonlahor, who fired low into the net from 10 yards.
Then the shoddy defending spread to Villa, allowing Cahill partially to atone for his error. In the 44th minute Sam Ricketts launched a long ball into the area that Villa failed to clear, allowing it to bobble to Cahill, whose shot deflected off Richard Dunne and back off the post. Elmander tapped it into the net from a yard.
Bolton briefly bucked up after the interval, but were soon betrayed again by bad defending. After 52 minutes Carew received the ball with his back to goal some 10 yards out before rolling effortlessly past Zat Knight and Cahill and poking it underneath Jaaskelainen for Villa's third.
Their fourth came after referee Mark Clattenburg awarded them a soft penalty, penalising Kevin Davies seemingly for an imperceptible shove on Carew. Jaaskelainen blocked Milner's spot-kick, Sidwell struck the rebound against a post and back the ball came to Milner, who thumped it home.
"That summed up our game," said Megson. "None of our players got anywhere near the rebounds. I feel sorry for Jussi because he played well, but none of our outfield players performed to the level we expect."
Three minutes later Carlos Cuellar completed the scoring, backheading Ashley Young's cross into the net from six yards.
- Paul Doyle
Sunday Independent
