What a great weekend down in Bournemouth. A great second division away day, everywhere you looked there were Villa fans. The beach was full of them the day after the game - it was like Weston. A posh Weston.
Football: Villa silence doubts
By STEVE TONGUE
6 March 1988
The Sunday Times
ST
English
© 1988 Times Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved
Bournemouth ............ 1 Aston Villa ............ 2
NINE games to go and Aston Villa are looking good. On a bracing south-coast afternoon, they reasserted themselves with a confidence which suggested last month's defeats at Blackburn and Middlesbrough have had no serious effect on their promotion bid.
If there was a fault yesterday it was in not killing off more quickly and cleanly a team now anxiously scanning the bottom half of the League table.
Villa manager, Graham Taylor, used a more vivid but unprintable metaphor which recalled Paul Gascoigne's recent fate at the hands of Wimbledon's Vinnie Jones.
Certainly, Andy Gray's headed own-goal, three minutes from time, would have proved acutely embarrassing had it not been for Platt's measured chip at the other end just beforehand.
As with many of Villa's visits to more humble surroundings this season, the occasion was more cup-tie than Second Division, featuring an all-ticket crowd packed into small stands and urging the home team to 'get stuck in' before the big boys could settle down.
In fact, as their astonishing away record suggests, Villa are now immune to this sort of culture shock. While the old sweats relegated a year ago might not have fancied it at all, Taylor's eager young men went purposefully about their work, and the thousands down from Birmingham had a goal to celebrate after only 15 minutes.
It was scored with considerable style by Daley, the graceful former England Youth international now filling Mark Walters's position on the left. He gained possession, after play was restarted with a dropped ball in midfield, then drifted inside two defenders to beat Peyton off the far post.
It was odd that Bournemouth, having lost O'Driscoll and the new record signing Close with first-half injuries, should then begin to look more dangerous. Abandoning the sweeper system, they tested Villa's defensive resolve, but Aylott's low drive, pushed round a post by Spink, was their only scoring opportunity. Only, that is, until Gray's unfortunate header.
-------------------------------------------------- Weather: cold. Ground: soft. -------------------------------------------------- Goals: Daley (15min) 0-1: Platt (83min) 0-2; A Gray (og 87min) 1-2. -------------------------------------------------- Bournemouth -------------------------------------------------- (1-4-2-3): Peyton: Newson; Langan, Williams, Whitlock, Morrell; Brooks, O'Driscoll (sub: Armstrong 20min); Crooke, Close (sub: O'Connor 45min), Aylott. -------------------------------------------------- Aston Villa -------------------------------------------------- (4-3-3): Spink; Gage, Evans, Keown, Gallacher; Birch, A Gray, S Gray; Platt, Thompson, Daley. -------------------------------------------------- Referee: J Moules (Dagenham). -------------------------------------------------- (c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 1988
