By Alan Duffy

Aston Villa 1-2 West Bromwich Albion – Premier League – 22 October 2011

They may have benefited from an extremely harsh red card given to Villa’s Chris Herd for a rather innocuous-looking tangle with Martin Olsson, but West Brom fully deserved their victory against their local rivals.

Darren Bent opened the scoring from the penalty spot after Ben Foster felled Gabriel Agbonlahor but after losing Herd, the Villans always looked vulnerable. Indeed, despite having the likes of Richard Dunne marshalling their backline, Villa once again struggled to deal with set-pieces, with Olsson heading home a Chris Brunt corner on half-time  before Paul Scharner made it two, again from a corner ball.

Brunt had missed (by some distance) a penalty kick before the Baggies finally scored, while Scottish defender Alan Hutton should have seen red for a dreadful challenge on West Brom striker Shane Long.

However, while Villa have now only won one of their last seven league games, West Brom now find themselves unbeaten in four top division fixtures and sitting pretty in 10th place in the table, level on points with Alex McLeish’s side.

Photos…

Baggies fans sing their hearts out

Shane Long injured after Alan Hutton’s wild challenge

Bent opens the scoring

Bent indulges in a very clichéd response to the critics

Brunt challenges Stephen Warnock

Lino Darren Cann tells (erroneous) tales to Phil Dowd

Herd is off!

Scharner celebrates his winner with that t-shirt again

Posted in Aston Villa, Photos, West Bromwich Albion | 3 Comments »