In a battle of incompetence, Villa lose to Leicester City

Aston Villa lost to Leicester City today at the King Power stadium 1-0. The match was poorly played by both sides, but the Foxes were the less incompetent of the two clubs, and managed to capitalize on one of their seemingly 500 chances when Paul Konchesky scored in the final seconds of the first half.

There's the important info. If that's all you're looking for you can click away. I won't blame you.

But let's talk about this a little bit. That has to have been one of the worst Villa performances I've ever seen. And that's saying something when you're talking about a team who have only scored 11 goals in 21 Premier League matches. As soon as we saw the lineups, we knew Villa wouldn't have any width, but as Alex pointed out on twitter, Leicester's style of play would give Villa plenty of room to move around in.

And hey, Alex is pretty damn smart. He was exactly right, and Villa had oodles of space to play in. The problem? They didn't use any of it. Multiple build-ups ended when a midfielder would pass the ball sideways or backwards to a forward, who would get dispossessed. Gabby Agbonlahor was atrocious today, but we've come to expect that from him. More annoying was the fact that Christian Benteke was also awful (maybe even more so). When he cares, Benteke is one of the best players in the league. But he so obviously isn't caring right now that he's atrocious.

The defense was, again, pretty good. In terms of attacking, the only player who really looked intent was Alan Hutton. Jores Okore didn't have a great day, but Ciaran Clark looked excellent until he got his red card (more on that in a second). Aly Cissokho did exactly what we expect. The defense is not the problem. It's the total lack of movement that is the problem. Villa got totally outclassed by a Leicester City club who played like they deserved their bottom-of-the-table position.

And one last thing before I go. I hate Leicester City. So damn much. In the 93rd or so minute, they tackled Jores Okore for a pretty obvious foul. Ciaran Clark came running up to collect the ball and take the free kick, but was blocked in his run by Matty James who he ran into and ended up pushing over. James jumped up, grabbed Clark's shirt, put Clark in a headlock, and a fracas ensued. James got the obvious red card, but Clark was given a yellow for... I don't know. Hustling to get back to the ball and having James get in his way? The yellow was Clark's second on the day, so he was sent off and will miss next week's match against Liverpool. So screw Leicester City and screw the sub-par referees in the Premier League.

We do this all again next week, and god knows if anything will change. Luckily, it's Liverpool against whom we seem to play well. Unluckily it's at Villa Park and not Anfield. Ugh.