O’Leary raging as Baggies move out of drop zone

Aston Villa 1 West Brom 1

Referee Rob Styles sent Ridgewell and Albion’s Jonathan Greening off after eyeballing each other 15 minutes into the second half.

Ridgewell claimed he and Greening both intended to appeal against the decision which will rule them out of the next three matches.

But O’Leary wasted no time in hitting out at Ridgewell, who had been drafted back into the side because of a knee ligament injury to skipper Olof Mellberg. He said: “The sending-off didn’t help us and it won’t help us for the next few games because I’m really short of bodies in that department, and we lose him for three games.

“I think the referee was right. You can’t afford to stick your head in peoples’ faces and try to be the hard man. Those days are gone. You walk away from those sort of things and, apart from costing us the game, it will cost us even more in the next few games. I’ve no-one to play there now.”

Baggies boss Bryan Robson had a different perspective on the flare-up after seeing his side move out of the bottom three for the first time in five months.

He said: “It was one of those situations for a referee where he could have said ‘behave yourself and get on with the game’. I don’t think there was a real serious blow from either player.

“Hopefully the video will prove that and maybe the referee will reverse his decision but if that doesn’t happen, we will appeal because Greening didn’t do that much. The last thing we want to do is lose a player like him for three matches.”

Albion were outplayed in the first period when Darius Vassell scored his first league goal since the opening day of the season but they rallied after the break.

O’Leary said: “Good luck to West Brom, but the game should have been won and that game just about sums up our season - doing stupid things, making silly mistakes. It should have been three points for us. In the first half we outplayed them and should have been well ahead. Then we were a shadow of ourselves in the second half. It has been that type of season.”

Robson said: “I thought the equaliser was never coming. I was disappointed the way we started the game. I thought Villa were sharper than us, were winning more 50-50 balls and deserved the lead. But I am really pleased with the response in the second half, to raise their game and create some of the situations we created. I thought we deserved the point.

“O’Leary played a diamond shape in midfield and Lee Hendrie was causing us problems so we changed our system at the end of the first half and matched Villa and we looked better. It is still about attitude and character in the second half and we deserved to get the goal because we kept going.”

ASTON VILLA: Sorensen, Delaney, Laursen, Ridgewell, Samuel, Solano (De la Cruz 64), Hendrie, Davis, Barry, Angel (Cole 80), Vassell.

WEST BROM: Hoult, Albrechtsen (Scimeca 80), Gaardsoe, Clement, Robinson, Gera, Wallwork, Richardson, Greening, Horsfield (Earnshaw 71), Campbell (Kanu 71).

Referee: R Styles (Hampshire).