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It only seemed fitting that we should celebrate one of Aston Villa's best wins of the season with gifs of the highest quality. We've got numerous views of all five goals scored in Villa's 4-1 thrashing of Norwich City, so let's get right to this.
Wes Hoolahan (3')
The match started with the perfect irony. Hoolahan, who wanted to come to Villa and who Villa chased all throughout January, got a rare start and capitalized almost instantly:
From the other side:
Rather amusingly, Hoolahan himself didn't seem to be too happy about his early goal:
From that point, Norwich controlled the match for about 20 minutes. That was until Ron Vlaar sent in a lovely pass to Christian Benteke
Christian Benteke (25')
Here's that lovely pass, and its even lovelier result:
You can see the absurd angle that Benteke made his shot with a bit better from this view:
But you can see the incredible control Benteke exhibited even better from here:
Christian Benteke (27')
The Beast wasn't done scoring yet, though. Almost immediately after his first goal he tried to get on the end of a corner, but couldn't quite convert. He was given a second chance and managed to slot it in in one of the cleanest headers you'll ever see:
As neat as you could ever hope for:
That would be all Villa needed for the win, as the defense played solid (if unspectacular) football for the rest of the day.
Leandro Bacuna (37')
Thought it was all they needed, Villa weren't quite done yet. In the 37th minute they launched a counterattack that was absolutely perfect. The end result was a Gabby Agbonlahor to Andi Weimann to Leandro Bacuna sequence that ended with Bacuna curling in a lovely left-footer off the post:
I didn't notice it on my first couple of viewings, but the Gabby to Andi pass was particularly good. And then Andi did a marvelous job of just touching it lightly on rather than trying for the goal himself:
And we shouldn't let slip from our memory the fact that Bacuna played the absolutely perfect ball to get it to his left foot and open up the angle for his shot:
By this point in the match, Norwich had so thoroughly broken down that the final act seemed far less surprising than it should have.
Sébastien Bassong (41' OG)
I feel badly for Bassong here. He made a great play to deny Gabby what would have been almost exactly the same goal. But in the end, he just ended up being the post off of which Fabian Delph shot. It's a pity this goes down as an own goal, and even more of one that Delph is denied the assist:
The frustration was evident at this point, and Norwich's John Ruddy could hardly contain his frustration:
More amusing was the frustration of Gabby at being denied a sure goal:
After all of this action, a goalless second half seemed to be the most boring 45 minutes of the season.
So, which of the goals was your favorite? My vote goes to Benteke's first, but the Bacuna one is also pretty lovely. Let us know what you think in the comments!
