A Capital Night Out at Villa Park

So far this season the old cliché “I wonder which team will turn up today” has applied to the Magpies. Some wonderful displays of close passing and team work capped off with fine finishing have clashed with other performances that have had Notts fans holding their heads in their hands.

At Villa Park the 1500 travelling faithful were on the edge of their seats or leaping in the air as the Capital One Cup second round tie with Aston Villa’s ‘Ups and Downs’ followed rapidly on each other.

In the opening minutes Notts did well to keep a clean sheet. Adama Traore, a £7m signing from Barcelona, made his debut and his mazy runs needed Notts defenders to stack up on him, but he still got through several times.

Villa’s quick passing around the midfield under the prompting of Jack Grealish and Jordan Veretout was impressive but Notts were not phased as the game ebbed and flowed from end to end.

Gill Swerts was doing a great job marshalling the defence and the high line forced several offside calls. Roy Carroll was taking every ball that got through and released Notts on counterattacks. The Notts midfield revolved again through the impressive Stanley Aborah with good support from Jon Stead and Genaro Snijders.

Snijders put Notts in front for the first time with a deflected shot with the excellent Traore equalising. Notts were correctly awarded a penalty on the verge of half time with a foul on Izale McLeod. Stead grabbed the ball and wouldn’t let anyone wrestle it off him before smashing it high into the roof of the net to send the Notts fans for their half-time Bovril in high spirits.

Scott Sinclair then showed good finishing skills to get the first of his three goals but Graham Burke put Notts ahead again with a wonderful curling shot from outside the box.

Then the unfortunate turning point of the game came as Stanley Aborah seemed to have timed his tackle well in the box but referee Chris Kavanagh awarded a penalty and Sinclair beat Carroll with the penalty.

Notts were up against it afterwards as the game went to extra time. There could have been two men sent off but Kavanagh was kind. McLeod on his debut had been kept quiet by the Villa defence and Jimmy Spencer, who looked a long way from full fitness, replaced him.

Carroll pulled off a wonder save and Spencer missed an easy chance to stab home from a Stead set-up but in between Villa scored twice through Sinclair and Joe Bennett to put the game beyond Notts.

Notts’s excellent play had shocked the Premier League team and with a little luck could have held on for a great win. However it had been a Capital Night Out with a display at least as good as the cup games at Anfield and Stamford Bridge.

Ricardo Moniz must be getting closer to working out his best combination and all the new signings are starting get to know each other. Let’s hope that this Notts team will ‘turn up’ on Saturdays as they showed a fighting spirit combined with great ball skills that we’ll need to get up into promotion contention.