Aston Villa 0 West Brom 2
by Simon Williams
at Villa Park

ASTON VILLA’S chances of a return to the Premier League look to be on hold for another season following a home defeat to local rivals West Bromwich Albion.

The Villans were relegated from the top tier of English football in 2016 but narrowly missed out on a return at the end of last season following defeat to Fulham in the play-off final at Wembley under Steve Bruce.

In October last year, with the team sitting 12th in the table after 11 games, Bruce was sacked and replaced by boyhood Villa fan Dean Smith.

But following an initial upturn in form following the arrival of Smith, Villa have struggled recently to keep pace with their promotion rivals winning just once in their last nine games.

And when asked if it would take a special turnaround to make up the ground to the teams above them, Smith said: “Yes, but this can be a special place. All we can do is go into the next game and try to win.

“Mathematically it’s not over but it’s getting harder that’s for sure [and] we haven’t helped ourselves today.

“The game was there for us because I thought it was a game we could win. There was nothing in it.”

West Brom opened the scoring on 41 minutes when Hal Robson-Kanu looped a header over over Villa’s 6ft 7in goalkeeper Lovre Kalinic.

On the stroke of half time Jay Rodriguez fired home his 17th goal of the season, a 20-yard effort that took a subtle deflection off Tommy Elphick to beat Kalinic and keep the Baggies within touching distance of an automatic promotion place.

“To get any three points on the road in this division is always rewarding,” said Albion manager Darren Moore. 

“It was a joint effort from everybody and needed to be. The hard work, commitment and desire shown by the players was excellent today.”