Aston Villa put in another shoddy performance as they were beaten 2-0 by local rivals West Brom at Villa Park.
The game got off to a frenetic start with both teams trying to catch their opponents out early on, and Villa should have taken the lead with around 10 minutes on the clock, but Tammy Abraham took a heavy touch when he had just the keeper to beat and the chance was gone.
For the next thirty minutes the two teams were evenly matched and it looked like they might go in at the break all square, but then came the five minutes that won the game for the visiting side.
In the 40th minute, Lovre Kalinic, all 6 foot 7 inches of him, was somehow beaten by a looping header from Hal Robson-Kanu when he was standing about half a foot off his line. Then, in the 45th minute, a speculative shot from Jay Rodriguez took a wicked deflection off Tommy Elphick and went in off the post.
Villa tried to get back into the game in the second-half, but West Brom, to their credit, closed the door and preserved the two goal lead that they had.
Here are our player ratings for today’s defeat to West Brom:
