Sam Allardyce told BT Sport that Bertrand Traore’s assist for Aston Villa’s first goal last night wasn’t a great cross and just ‘simple’.
Traore, who also got on the scoresheet during Villa’s 3-0 drubbing of West Brom, picked the ball up on the edge of the area inside four minutes and floated a lovely weighted ball over the opposition defence where a lurking Anwar El Ghazi slotted home at the near post.
Villa went onto dominate the entire match and life was made even tougher for Allardyce in his first game in charge of the Baggies when Jake Livermore was shown a straight red for a reckless and high tackle on Jack Grealish in the first half.
After the game, Allardyce shared his thoughts on the early stages and how his team shot themselves in the foot early on.
“Starting off and dreaming on the first goal was something that I was not very pleased about,” said Allardyce. Four minutes [to concede]. A simple cross. Not a great cross, in all fairness, and we are ball watching.
“Sadly, we go 1-0 down. We keep it tight from then on. I was a little concerned about whether we would keep our shape. Keep trying to get back into the game. Up until then, we were trying and not that successfully.
“Then the sending off has completely thrown it against us. That was the last thing we needed.”
Even before the sending off, Villa looked the far superior side, with Grealish, Traore, El Ghazi and McGinn causing havoc in the final third.
El Ghazi will feel that he should have scored a hat-trick on the night, and he should have done the same against Burnley in midweek.
It has been some return for the technically-gifted winger, who had, at one point, fallen out of Villa’s matchday squad. But he’s now getting back to his best.
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