Aston Villa 2-3 Wolves
by Gene Sylvester
at Villa Park

IT WAS not the only Birmingham-Black Country derby this weekend, but in terms of entertainment Villa and Wolves fully trumped the undercard the night before.

Where the Championship encounter between West Brom and Birmingham on Friday night was bereft of any quality or real intrigue, the Premier League encounter on Saturday afternoon turned out to be an epic as Wolves came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 — all five goals coming in a fascinating second half.

“I am struggling to process what happened,” admitted shell-shocked Villa boss Dean Smith after the final whistle.

“We limited them to next to nothing, and at 2-0 we looked the most likely to score next.”

Wolves, coming off the back of two wins in their last two outings in the Premier League, were slow out of the blocks as the home side bossed the first half in terms of goalscoring opportunities.

Villa’s first-half dominance was almost rewarded after 26 minutes when Emiliano Buendia found space in the middle of the park and slipped a delightful ball between two Wolves defenders to find Danny Ings’s run.

The striker took the ball expertly into his path, but Jose Sa was equal to his effort — getting down low to his right to palm the ball wide of the goal.

Wolves had the first clear sight of goal when, after 30 minutes, Adama Traore went on one of his trademark runs, evading no less than five challenges along the way.

After picking up the ball just inside his own half, the attacker came to the edge of Villa’s penalty area where his effort at goal was characteristically unbefitting of the run itself — fired straight at Emiliano Martinez.

Again, Villa were fastest out of the blocks in the second half as the home side took the lead on 48 minutes. 

John McGinn held off a challenge from Romain Saiss before spinning the defender and delivering a delicious cross for Ings, who nodded the ball past the Wolves goalkeeper.

The impressive McGinn then turned goalscorer as his deflected shot put Dean Smith’s side 2-0 up, seemingly giving his men all three points with just over 20 minutes to play.

But the boys from the Black Country summoned up a Herculean effort in the last 10 minutes to turn the game on its head.

Wolves’ first goal was crafted in Portugal and finished off in Morocco, with Ruben Neves recycling a ball back into the box following a half-cleared corner.

His cutely angled ball found substitute Daniel Podence, who fed the ball back across the face of the goal for Saiss to slide home at the back post.

The away side’s second goal came courtesy of another centre-back, and was almost a carbon copy of the first.

Maximilian Kilman had just hit the crossbar with a header when Traore picked up the ball and showing real composure, dinking a ball to the back post for Leander Dendoncker to prod back across goal — this time for Conor Coady to fumble home.

The winner arrived in the 94th minute, breaking Villa fans’ hearts. Traore was fouled just outside the box after another powerful run towards goal, and the resulting free-kick was dispatched by Neves — finding the net by way of a deflection off Matt Targett to spark hysterical scenes in the away end.

Bruno Lager was understandably delighted after the match. “This kind of game is why I came to the Premier League,” the new Wolves boss said. “These are the games I want in my career.

“Nobody deserved to lose today, but for the job we did, the three points is very good for us.”