Aston Villa 3-0 Middlesbrough: The playoff push is on

Aston Villa welcomed playoff rivals Middlesbrough to Villa Park, and it was another showing of Tony Pulis and his way of playing the game.

The first ten minutes were dominated by the Villa, but without a goal. It seemed that was the theme of the game for the first third of the match, until the 28’, John McGinn spun to the middle of the field and found Anwar El Ghazi, who finished nicely.

Some more dominant play from Aston Villa led to a John McGinn goal in the 44’, to put Villa really in the drivers seat going into halftime.

Coming out to the second half, it was more of the same for the boys in claret and blue, and with a few chances gone untaken, it was not too worrisome, because we were still cruising up two goals to nil.

Villa’s first sub was in the 65’ when Albert Adomah came on for Andre Green.

Boro made a change in the 32’, and then their last two by the 62’, so that really goes to show how dominant of play it was today for Aston Villa.

A bit of a scary moment came in the 72’ when Tammy Abraham limped off the field and immediately waved to the bench, but he was not taken to the tunnel early or anything, so it seems it might not be too bad. Let’s hope.

Tammy was replaced by Jonathan Kodjia, and then less than three minutes later, in the 75’, Anwar El Ghazi could not continue. He was replaced by Kienan Davis, and it was nice to see him get some minutes.

On the brink of the start of added time, Albert Adomah reacted first to a spilled shot and tapped in the rebound from close range, to put Aston Villa up 3-0, and ensure all three points.

This is the second time this season that Aston Villa beat Middlesbrough 3-0, after knocking them out of the playoffs last season. Villa now jump into 6th place, as Derby County and Bristol City both did not play today, and we sit just one point behind Boro now.

Up the Villa!