Coventry City 1-3 Aston Villa
by Gene Sylvester
at Coventry Arena

A DISAPPOINTING start to the season for Coventry City and Aston Villa had seen both teams fail to register a win in their opening four games of the Premier League season, so the third round League Cup tie between the two West Midlands rivals represented an opportunity to potentially revive their faltering starts to the 26/27 campaign.

And it was the away side who progressed through to the fourth round of the competition following a fairly routine 3-1 win, which came courtesy of a Tammy Abraham brace and a rare headed Ross Barkley goal, despite a mini fightback from Coventry which saw Victor Torp score the goal of the game with a sublime free-kick.

Frank Lampard’s only victory so far this season had come in the previous round of this competition where his team had despatched of League One outfit Plymouth Argyle, so the Sky Blues supporters arriving at the Coventry Arena were hoping that this League Cup tie could once again provide some much needed respite.

This match was the first meeting between the two clubs since May 2001, with that game resulting in a 3-2 victory to the Villains, a result that relegated the Sky Blues from the Premier League, ending what was a 34-year stay in the top flight of English Football until their return this season.

That fact was not lost on the travelling Villa fans as they belted out ‘we sent you down’ within the opening minutes of the clash.

Coventry almost gifted Unai Emery’s men a goal in the first minute when indecision and a lack of communication among the Sky Blues defence allowed Matteo Ruggeri to steal in and send a cross into the Coventry box, but the ball was just behind the unmarked John McGinn and rolled away to safety.

But it didn’t take long for the Villains to get it right and in the eighth minute, a sublime outside of the boot pass from the impressive George Hemmings on Villa’s left, perfectly found the central run of Abraham in behind the Coventry defence, who was then able to calmly pass his shot past Dan Bentley into the corner of the Coventry goal to give Villa the lead.

Coventry midfielder Torp provided the biggest threat to the Villa goal in the opening exchanges and in the 26th minute of the game, that threat materialised into an equaliser from the Danish player.

Ross Barkley was caught napping on the ball on the edge of his own penalty box, allowing the energetic Caleb Yirenkyi to pick his pocket with the Villa midfielder opting to pull down his Coventry counterpart to prevent any further danger to the Villa goal.

But that danger remained clear and apparent as Torp stepped up to fire the resulting free-kick high into the top right-hand corner of Marco Bizot’s net, with the Villa goalkeeper rooted to the spot.

But the home side were unable to keep up their momentum and Villa retook the lead ten minutes later when Ibrahim Mbaye, making his first start for the club following his summer arrival from PSG, whipped in a near post corner which was nodded home by Barkley to make up for his part in the Coventry equaliser.

Abraham wrapped up the game as a contest on the hour when another corner, this time from captain John McGinn, was crossed low into the box for the big striker to fire home unmarked from close range to douse the flames of any potential fightback that Lampard’s men had in mind.