Wolverhampton Wanderers secured a thrilling 2-0 victory over Aston Villa in a tense West Midlands derby. The match saw Wolves edge past their rivals with goals from Jean Ricner-Bellegarde and Matheus Cunha. The win boosted Wolves’ position in the table, while Villa will be left to reflect on missed opportunities as they push for a top-four finish.
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00:00Wolverhampton Wanderers 2, Aston Villa 0, and the local derby here at Molyneux has gone
00:07the hosts way. Surprisingly so, coming into this one Wolves were in the relegation zone,
00:12Aston Villa just a few points outside the top four, looking to take advantage of Newcastle
00:16United's defeat to Fulham, but Unai Emery's team unable to do that, Vitor Pereira is coming
00:21out on top. The opening goal of the game from Jean-Richmond Bellegarde was very deserved
00:25as the hosts got off to a fantastic start. A very nice finish from Bellegarde into the
00:30near post, beating Andy Martinez would be very disappointing to be beaten at that near
00:34post. It was a great through ball and Pupukar Kamara playing as an auxiliary centre-half
00:39for Aston Villa was caught off guard. The likes of Uri Tielemans and Lamar Bogard were
00:44also kind of dragged in, sucked into the action just beforehand. Villa appalling defensively
00:50but Wolves very clinical and deserved their goal. The hosts, they gained great confidence
00:54from opening the scoring and potentially could have had two, three or four before half-time.
00:59Gonzalo Guedes played through on goal on several occasions, Mateus Cunha as well. Cunha dispossessing
01:04Kamara in one instance, going clean through, but Andy Martinez made a fine save. Going
01:09into second half, Emery must have been very frustrated at half-time as he made four substitutions.
01:15One of those, Daniel Marlon, made an instant impact, or so we thought, as he found the
01:19back of the net. It was a very clever set-piece from Villa, just on the outside of the area.
01:25John McGinn is played to by Leon Bailey with a short, free kick out on the left. McGinn
01:30plays it across the face of goal and Marlon taps home. Villa fans go wild and the flag
01:35is up on the near side. You're thinking, all right, what's this for then? Is it Marlon?
01:40Is he offside? The replay showed he was on, so what's the problem here? Are VAR going
01:44to overturn it? Is he going to be given after all? Then Morgan Rodgers is adjudged to be
01:48in an offside position. Yes, he was offside, but that's saying he interfered with play
01:53and stopped Samedo from tracking back. Having watched it two, three, four times afterwards,
01:58I don't think Rodgers even makes any contact with Samedo, so I'm not quite sure what the
02:01Premier League are seeing there. It's really cost Villa, because they could have won all,
02:06they could have had confidence and gone on to win the game potentially. A lot of their
02:09players running their socks off for their team to try and hold on to those points. Villa
02:13went very close at the end, twice, through Marlon, who had his shot saved by Jose Sarr,
02:18unable to find the net, and then right at the end, Mateus Cunha doubling Wolves' advantage
02:22and making short of all three points. It was a counter-attack. There are quite a few Wolves
02:27throughout the game on the transition, looking very dangerous. Ezra Konza appeared to get
02:31back just in time, and he jockeyed Cunha, but Cunha somehow worked some space to find
02:38the ball onto the right-hand side, onto his favoured right foot, and he swung it into
02:42the far bottom left-hand corner. Molineux went absolutely crazy. I've not seen it this
02:47loud in such a long time. Such an important three points for them as they go out of the
02:51relegation zone. Villa, meanwhile, they must go back to the drawing board and probably
02:55need to sign a defender, given how some of their defenders played this evening.