Interesting to see the ex Villa staff in the Norwich team - Townsend, Culverhouse, Allen...
McInally muscles in on the leaders and the limelight;Football
Clive White
By Clive White
731 words
5 December 1988
The Times
© 1988 Times Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved
Aston Villa 3 Norwich City 1
There are no prizes for guessing where Aston Villa's acquisition of Gary Lineker would have left Alan McInally. But it is hard to imagine on what grounds Graham Taylor, the manager, would have dropped a player who scores as many goals and excites as many people as the powerfully built Scot who rejoices in the nickname of Rambo.
McInally, who has scored more League and cup goals than anyone in the first division, may not be the player to give Villa their short cut to the top as Taylor thought Lineker might, but the Villa crowd should enjoy the journey just the same with the bustling McInally.
He may have failed to add to his haul of 15 goals on Saturday but he was chiefly responsible for softening up Norwich City for their first away defeat of the season.
``I like combination play and I like people who know what they are doing,'' Taylor said. ``But the spectators also like to see somebody who does something different. McInally excites people the way he runs and attacks defenders. The day he stops doing it, he is not going to be half the player.''
It was Villa's willingness to carry the battle to the opposition on all fronts which led to Norwich's downfall.
The little East Anglian side has prided itself on being able to soak up pressure away from home but Villa were like a team possessed in the first half, obviously inspired by the six goals which they had put past Ipswich in midweek.
Daley gave us his most convincing impression yet of that cartoon character, the Road Runner, leaving Culverhouse as frustrated as the Coyote. While up the right flank, Andy Gray similarly ran Bowen to distraction. From the first minute when McInally shot narrowly over the crossbar, Norwich were chasing a lost cause.
One could not help feeling that they had handicapped themselves by leaving Rosario, their excellent target man, and Crook, their principal play maker on the bench. Being first and foremost a footballing side, who play to feet, David Stringer, their manager, probably saw no need for Rosario's height, yet it may not have been a coincidence that Norwich enjoyed their most offensive period when the two substitutes came on for the last 20 minutes.
By then the game had been won by Aston Villa with the sort of spectacular goal which is becoming common place at Villa Park these days. Gage may have some experience in hitting the ball long from his days at Wimbledon but he seldom did it with the velocity with which he drove past Gunn from 25 yards.
Norwich's Scottish goalkeeper had less reason to lose sight of the ball on other occasions, but there could be little dispute, one would have thought, that he got to grips with it cleanly enough, when he went down bravely at McInally's feet in the 51st minute.
John Martin, the referee, disputed it and so did Gunn when a penalty was awarded. The upshot was a booking for Gunn and another good save from the boot of Platt, who was forced to wait too long for his spot kick. Having already lost their advantage to an undeserving equalizer from Putney, Villa, who had recently lost four consecutive games, commendably kept their nerve and regained the lead, thanks to another misplaced contribution from the same player.
With a touch of complacency which Stringer thought was all too prevalent, Putney gave the ball away to Andy Gray with a back heel and from his cross Platt brought his tally for the week to five with a well placed header.
By the time Gage offered us another demonstration of his long-range shooting prowess, Norwich were already resigned to thoughts of how they might recover their lost ground at the head of the championship next Saturday when Arsenal visit Carrow Road.
ASTON VILLA: N Spink; C Price, S Gray, K Gage, A Evans, M Keown, A Gray, D Platt, A McInally, G Cowans, A Daley.
NORWICH CITY: B Gunn, I Culverhouse, M Bowen, I Butterworth, A Linighan, A Townsend, D Gordon (sub: R Rosario), R Fleck (sub: I Crook), M Allen, M Phelan, T Putney
