Aston Villa Women beat Durham 5-1 in the Conti Cup
On Wednesday night it was the third game of the Conti Cup group stage for the ladies. This round saw them once again face championship opponents this time in the form of Durham at the Poundland Bescot Stadium. The ladies were looking to make it 3 wins from 3 in the Conti Cup after previous big wins against both Sheffield United and Blackburn Rovers. After the previous game in the Conti Cup saw Villa beat Blackburn 7-0 at home the ladies were looking to hopefully improve in this game and have some success in this competition.
As with the other previous cup matches Carla Ward once again opted to make changes for this game, choosing to rest some of the regular starters after the tough game on Sunday against Manchester City. Regular starters such as Rachel Daly, Kenza Dali, Jordan Nobbs and Anna Patten saw themselves starting this game on the bench. With seemingly no place for Sunday’s goalscorer Dan Turner, number 1 Daphne Van Domselaar or Alisha Lehmann named in the team. Which we would later find out was due to injuries for all 3 picked up on Sunday with DVD entering the concussion protocol and will also be missing from the weekend’s game against Brighton.
Once again in the cup, Anna Leat started in goal, with Ebony Salmon and Lucy Staniforth returning to the starting 11 for this game. Ward also opted to start with both Kirsty Hanson and Adriana Leon on the wings with Lucy Parker also returning to the starting 11 for her first start since injury, lining up alongside captain Rachel Corsie in the centre-back positions. There was also a place for young defenders Lydia Salloway and Marpha MacPhail to make the matchday squad for the game hoping to make their professional debuts for the club after impressing for the under-23s.
The game started as you would expect with Villa dominating possession but not creating anything from it. Just like in the Conti Cup last season Durham proved to make it difficult for Villa to break through their defence or create any clear-cut chances. Olivia Mcloughlin saw herself the first player to be booked in just the 5th minute for kicking the ball away when the referee stopped the game for a foul which she didn’t agree with. Not much happened in the first half with 2 Durham players finding their way into the book but not allowing Villa to show their attacking threat and remaining strong defensively throughout the half. The first half ended 0-0 with the visitors being forced to sit back a lot during the half and struggling to create many chances of their own.
At half time both teams looked to the bench to find that change for the rest of the game. The home side brought off Staniforth and decided to introduce the reliable fan favourite Patten which allowed Parker to move forward into the centre midfield role which she was successfully playing for Villa before her injury. This proved to be a success as less than 5 minutes into the second half Villa had their breakthrough with the ball being played out to Hanson who seemed to easily run at the visitors fullback and calmly cross the ball to an unmarked Leon who slotted cooly into an empty net to make it 1-0 to the home side in the 49th minute. Leon was left completely unmarked in the box with the Durham defenders and goalkeeper opting to mark Salmon and close down Hanson instead.
Villa’s attacking threat continued and less than 5 minutes later the home side managed to double their lead. Leon managed to cross the ball into the box into the head of captain Corsie who headed home her first goal of the season to make it 2-0 to Villa in the 53rd minute. Leon originally took a corner that was poorly cleared by the Durham defence back to her which allowed Leon a second chance of delivering the ball into the box this time successfully finding her teammate. With fatigue looking to become an issue for the visitors Villa were finding it much easier to play through the lines and create chances but very few seemed to trouble Naoisha McAloon in the Durham net
In the 59th minute, Villa showed their squad depth with a double substitution opting to bring on the reliable Dali and Daly to replace Hanson and Corsie making Daly captain for the remainder of the game. As expected with Daly she looked like scoring from the minute she entered the pitch with one of her first touches being a header just wide of the Durham post. With the visitors struggling to deal with the new attacking threat possessed by Villa they opted to make a triple substitution themselves just over 5 minutes later in a bid to eliminate the amount of balls finding the feet of both Dali and Daly.
It took less than 10 minutes from when she came on the pitch for Daly to score her first goal of the game. The forward got on the end of a Sarah Mayling cross and slotting home to make it 3-0 to the home side in the 68th minute of the game. This was Daly’s 6th goal in this competition and she has yet to play a full match. Villa once again made changes not long later with Ward bringing on the experienced Nobbs for returning Parker and handing Salloway her professional debut replacing Laura Blindkilde Brown and slotting alongside Patten in defence.
Just 2 minutes after these changes were made Villa were through on goal once again, with the famous Dali-Daly combo from last season proving a success once again. Dali played a ball through for Daly to run onto and slot home her second of the game and 7th in 3 games in this competition. With this game practically won Villa didn’t look like stopping with 15 minutes of normal time remaining we were still causing a threat going forward. However, in the 87th minute, Durham managed to get themselves a consolation goal after a mess up defensively saw them manage to get a shot at goal with nothing Leat could do to stop it. This was the first goal Villa had conceded so far in this tournament and the first real chance of the second half for the visitors.
Just 2 minutes later in the 89th minute, Daly got her hat trick. A long ball played over the top by Patten found the feet of Daly who scored her best goal of the evening finding the bottom left-hand corner from a tight angle making it 5-1 to Villa. This was Daly’s 2nd hat trick already in this tournament and puts her top of the Golden Boot race after 8 goals in 3 games so far. After only being on the pitch for just over half an hour Daly proved why she is vital to this Villa team and once again showed what a threat she is against any opposition. Not much else happened in this game with Villa now topping their group with 1 game of the group stages left to play against Sunderland which they will face on Sunderland 24th January with a 19:30 kick-off on a Wednesday night.
Analysis
There weren’t many negatives to report from this game with a convincing win for Villa once again in this cup. Although I wasn’t impressed with Salmon’s performance in this match as she seemed highly fatigued and didn’t manage to cause any issues for the Durham goalkeeper and seemed to give the ball away frequently as did once again Corsie. Although it was a good team performance from all.
With news coming out that Villa will be without number 1 goalkeeper DVD as well as Dan Turner and Alisha Lehmann for Sunday’s game against Brighton, Villa was looking a little light on the team and subs they could have. Villa are left with only one goalkeeping option with the young Sophia Poor also still sidelined with a shoulder injury. Carla Ward has announced she will be looking for an emergency loan so we will be able to have a substitute goalkeeper for the final game before the Christmas break. The most mentioned names are Ellie Roebuck who has fallen out of favour at Man City this season and Hannah Hampton who is yet to make her Chelsea debut. I would like to see Roebuck come to Villa even on a loan as she has always impressed when called upon and was a very good goalkeeper last season for Man City.
Villa will be looking to end the year on a high and recording a win against Brighton. Last season saw us draw and then heavily beat them just a week later in the league with fans hoping for a repeat this season. Hopefully, we can perform better than what we did last weekend cause an attacking threat and look to hit Brighton on the front foot from the get-go. With kick-off set for 18:45 at Bescott on Sunday, we will be hoping for a successful end to the week.