Aston Villa 3 Chelsea 1: Lots of good football from Chelsea reserves tonight, but it wasn´t enough

I don´t normally do a post about the reserves, mostly because I very rarely get to see them, but tonight, while I was flicking through the channels, I found Chelsea TV and guess what, it was live from Villa Park.

I should also stress before anyone makes a comment, that I don´t on purpose subscribe to Chelsea TV, I just have a package where it is included.

Anyway, I watched the match tonight and I was quite impressed. Not by any particular player or the result, but by the work ethic and attitude.

I was twittering through the match, as I tend to do these days when it comes to anything Aston Villa and a couple of the tweets I made referenced how they are playing, much like the first team; very hard, determined and direct. I also tweeted something about how reserve team football seems more honest.

That is probably the wrong word, it just seems more like what football should be about. I think we saw the physio on once, I didn´t see one player fall over after getting felt up and when a player did get a knock, they stood up and ran it off. The football just seemed more real and you know what, honest is the right word.

But, to the match. We played like the first team and Chelsea played like their first team, but it wasn´t enough for them and while I think it helped having Curtis and Bouma in the back four, our midfield battled and we took our chances.

I should also mention why I titled the post the way I did. Basically, Chelsea passed it around a lot and it looked very nice, but it just wasn´t enough. However, they did have a lad play tonight, number 11 I think and he was very special. More players like him and they would have done much better and he is certainly one to watch for the future, not doubt with a few others as they did have a different composure on the ball to a lot of our players.

But, we won, not them. Delfouneso had a quiet game and was replaced by Harry Forrester with twenty minutes to go. Eric Lichaj looked good and overall nobody had a bad game but nobody really stood out either. It was a good team performance.

Goals from Andreas Weimann from 25 yards out, Ciaran Clark with an overhead kick and James Collins (not the Welsh James Collins, but the one born in Coventry), who stole a Jonathan Hogg header that was going in were enough and overall, a very enjoyable match to watch.

If only we could get our own TV channel, then I´d be able to watch all the reserve team matches, but based on tonight only, I have to say that I am looking forward to seeing more of Andreas Weimann, Jonathan Hogg, Ciaran Clark and Eric Lichaj and if I could see more reserve team football, I know I´ll be adding more names to that list.

Maybe one day I´ll see more of them in the first team or on the Aston Villa TV channel. One day.

Aston Villa: David Bevan, Eric Lichaj, Wilfred Bouma, Jonathan Hogg, Ciaran Clark, Curtis Davies, James Collins, Andreas Weimann, Nathan Delfouneso, Dominik Hofbauer, Matthew Roome. Substitutes: Harry Forrester (for Delfouneso, 71), Samir Carruthers, Tomos Roberts, Derrick Williams, Ryan Simmonds (someone please tell me which Simmonds it was - thanks).