Aston Villa can pull off great escape, declares boss Remi Garde
Joleon Lescott and Gabby Agbonlahor scored in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Norwich to give Villa just their third league win of the season.
Villa took the lead before the break through Joleon Lescott’s back-post header. They doubled their lead when Gabriel Agbonlahor scored a first league goal for 11 months on 51 minutes.
Villa remain eight points from safety. But in an unpredictable campaign, Garde feels Villa can survive. He said: “Why not? When you see Leicester now, it’s crazy and unbelievable, nobody could have seen that 12 months ago.
“I believe in hard work, discipline, rigour. It’s not only in a week or two weeks you can pick up the fruits of that. If we keep this attitude maybe everyone will eat fruits at the end of the season.”
The Canaries have now lost their last six games in all competitions and conceded 19 goals in their wretched run.
Declan Rudd rashly ran out of goal but failed to stop Agbonlahor making it 2-0 and boss Alex Neil insisted he cannot control their errors.
He said: “You don’t need a mastermind coach or tactician to say head the ball and don’t run out of your goal. It needs to come from the players... Nobody wants to feel the pain of relegation. I’ve got two promotions back-to-back and the last thing I want to do is go back.”
Bunn, Richards (Clark 90), Okore, Lescott, Cissokho, Bacuna, Gana, Westwood, Gil, Agbonlahor, Veretout.
Rudd, Martin, Klose, Bassong, Brady, O’Neil, Mulumbu (Redmond 56), Howson, Naismith (Jarvis 80), Hoolahan (Bamford 56), Mbokani.
Martin Atkinson.
