Burton Albion 1 - 0 Aston Villa: Bruce’s men dumped out of the Carabao Cup

One of the best things about being a football fan is not being about to watch your favourite football team play a football match.

Take today’s Carabao Cup match for example, where, for example, season ticket holders who didn’t attend the match had to pay to receive an audio feed (it had been free in the past). In fact, there was no way to watch the match apart from being at the match.

At the very least, it sounds like a relief. The short away trip up the A38 to Burton Albion resulted in Villa failing to take more than 3 shots on goal in the first half. Shortly into the second-half, Villa fell to a comedy of errors, as a looping effort on goal found it’s way over on-loan goalkeeper Andre Moreira after hitting centre-back Tommy Elphick. Villa’s only joy came when Henri Lansbury punted the ball out of the stadium.

A late rally for Aston Villa saw them place the Burton penalty area under siege with a barrage of corners. Albion’s haphazard defending in this situation saw defender Kyle McFadzean dismissed for a handball in the face of goal. Villa’s blushes weren’t exactly spared though, as the chance was spurned when the resulting penalty was bounced off the goalkeeper by Albert Adomah.

While Steve Bruce’s lineup was much-rotated, Aston Villa seemed to display the trends that mirrored their regular woes. Lack of conviction in front of goal, lack of stability at the back and no back-up plan. Despite deploying a strong lineup, Villa struggled to do anything of note, and landed two shots on target. One of which was a missed penalty.

Plenty of Villans won’t be too worried about exiting the Carabao Cup at the second road. That’s a tremendous shame - and it might hide the fact that Villa haven’t won in four games, they’ve barely scored a goal from open play and they’ve just lost to a side currently struggling in the league below them.