Aston Villa player ratings: Preston (H)

Aston Villa, in a way that only Aston Villa could, threw away a two goal advantage against lowly Preston North End on Tuesday night.

Villa were much better than Preston in the first-half and thanks to goals from Tammy Abraham and Jonathan Kodjia, they went in at the break with a deserved 2-0 lead.

However, during the break it seems that tactical genius Steve Bruce told his players that 2-0 was enough and that they should sit back and invite pressure on themselves.

But, as we all know, these Villa players don’t cope with pressure very well and when James Chester gave away a penalty and was sent off in the 54th minute, every single Villa fan in the stadium knew what would happen.

Bruce obviously had to replace a striker with a defender, but his baffling decision to get rid of Tommy Elphick and not replace him with another centre-back came back to bite him. He had no option but to put on James Bree, meaning that he had four right-backs in defence for the rest of the game.

He must be bemoaning the fact that he wasn’t able to call on Mile Jedinak, one of the best centre-backs in the league…

Preston started to press and the Villa defence were all over the place. They somehow managed to hold out for another 23 minutes before Paul Gallagher drew the visitors level with a free-kick that Mark Bunn should have stopped.

The away side then took the lead in the 86th minute when Louis Moult was left unchallenged in the box and powered a header home. A large majority of Villa fans started leaving the stadium, but the drama was not over yet – Yannick Bolasie scrambled the ball home in the 91st minute to draw Villa level.

Then, in the 97th minute, Villa were awarded a penalty. However, as Bruce had inexplicably taken off both his strikers, the responsibility fell on one of the midfielders – step up Glenn Whelan, with his prolific record of one goal in six years.

The Irishman’s penalty was as poor as Bruce’s decision to give him penalty duty, and Villa had to settle for a point.

Bruce had a cabbage chucked at him before the game started, and if that was manager for the match, Villa might have walked away with all three points.

Here are our Villa ratings for one of Bruce’s last games in charge: