Aston Villa made it through to the second round of the Carabao Cup thanks to a hard-fought 1-0 win over Yeovil at Huish Park.
The home side put in a valiant effort throughout and were unlucky not to go ahead just before the break when they had a goal disallowed for a soft foul on Whelan.
After the break, Yeovil were looking threatening, and they were rewarded a very soft penalty in the 60th minute when Elphick was adjudged to have been holding onto a player. This was probably, in reality, the referee’s attempt at making up for his earlier error.
The resulting penalty was a poor one and Moreira, who was making his Villa debut, saved it pretty comfortably. From then on, it was all Villa, and Grealish and Kodjia, who both came on a few minutes before the penalty, started to run the show.
The winner came in the 77th minute when Grealish played a fine ball through to Kodjia, who subsequently sent his defender for a hot dog courtesy of a neat turn, before he squared it across the goal for Hourihane to tap in.
Yeovil went searching for the equalizer, but it wasn’t to be.
Here are our player ratings for tonight’s match:
GK: Andre Moreira - 5.5
Saved a penalty to keep the scores level, but he looked nervous for the majority of the match.
RB: Ritchie De Laet - 6
Defended well, but he is at his best when he is getting forward and swinging crosses into the box, which is something he didn’t do a lot of tonight.
CB: Tommy Elphick - 6
Had a pretty solid game defensively and was unlucky to give away a penalty.
CB: Axel Tuanzebe - 7
Cleared the ball off the line and mopped up when Moreira fumbled the ball. A solid display in defence.
LB: Neil Taylor - 6
Concentrated on his defensive duties and put in a decent shift. Could have tried to get forward a little bit more though.
LM: Andre Green - 6.5
Put a number of dangerous balls into the box and forced the keeper into making a fine save. Faded in the second-half though.
CM: Glenn Whelan - 5.5
Mopped up the loose balls in the midfield, but he was slow on the ball at time and his distribution was poor.
CM: Jake Doyle-Hayes - 6
Tried to move the ball quickly and looked comfortable when in possession. However, he found it tough at times against a physical Yeovil midfield.
CM: Conor Hourihane - 6
Was quiet for large periods of the game, but he has gotten into the habit of scoring when he is not having the best of games.
RM: Albert Adomah - 5
Adomah has been out of form for a while now, and this was another very average performance from the Ghanaian.
ST: Rushian Hepburn-Murphy - 5
Was given the chance to show Bruce what he is capable of, but he failed to grab his opportunity. He failed to get into the match and was subbed off early in the second half.
SUB: Jack Grealish - 7
Upped the tempo when he came on and caused the Yeovil defence a lot of problems. Was involved in the build-up to the goal.
SUB: Jonathan Kodjia - 7
Gave the Yeovil defenders something to think about when he came on and he set up the goal with some tidy play.