Aston Villa 0-1 Stoke: Marko Arnautovic downs hosts

By Sam Drury

Saturday 3 October 2015 18:29, UK

Marko Arnautovic scored the only goal of the game for Stoke as Aston Villa slipped to their sixth defeat in eight games.

The Austrian scored 10 minutes into the second half with a crisp low finish to leave Villa slumped in the relegation zone.

Tim Sherwood's side pushed hard for an equaliser in the closing stages but the closer the clock ticked to 90 minutes, the less Villa looked like scoring.

Stoke held on and for them it was a second successive win and their third in a row at Villa Park as they look to put their own poor start to the season behind them.

The one down side for the Potters was an injury to Mame Biram Diouf late on that saw the forward stretchered off.

Stoke were the quicker to settle in the first half and could have gone in front in the fourth minute when Diouf was played in by Jon Walters down the right. The forward got into the box but saw his shot well blocked by Micah Richards.

The visitors stayed on the front foot for the opening 15 minutes before Villa, trying out a new 3-5-2 formation, started to grow into the game.

However, the hosts almost fell behind when Charlie Adam tried his luck from well inside his own half. The midfielder saw Guzan off his line and made good contact only to be denied at the last second by the back peddling goalkeeper, who tipped the ball past the post.

At the other end Villa struggled to get Rudy Gestede into the game after his double last weekend and had to remain wary of the threat posed by Arnautovic on the break.

Indeed, the Stoke wide man thought he had put the Potters in front after one such counter-attack. He broke from deep before playing it out to Bojan.

The diminutive former Barcelona man let the ball run across his body before whipping in a fantastic cross that Arnautovic poked home only to see the assistant with his flag raised as he wheeled away to celebrate.

The replays showed it was the right decision although there was very little in it.

Villa introduced Jack Grealish at half-time and ditched the back three but it was a similar story again in the second half, with Mark Hughes' men in the ascendancy early on. The difference this time was that they made their dominance count.

It took 10 minutes and Bojan had already wasted a promising opening with a lax pass having been played in by Glen Johnson, but eventually the pressure told.

Johnson was again the creator as he picked up the ball 35 yards from goal in the inside right position and fed a perfectly waited pass into Arnautovic, who took a touch before firing past Guzan and in off the post.

Tim Sherwood will have been far from happy with his central defenders as Richards and Crespo left a vast gap between them that Arnautovic was simply allowed to run through.

The response from Villa was a good one and they could have been level within 60 seconds of the restart. A ball was floated nicely to the far post and Micah Richards was free to run onto it and head the ball goalwards.

However, his radar was off and he managed to head the ball wide from six yards, much to the despair of the Holte End faithful.

Jordan Ayew and Carles Gil were thrown on by Sherwood as he went in search of an equaliser.

However, as the game wore on Stoke looked as likely to find a second on the counter as Villa did to level the scores.

Gestede broke into the box and shot at Butland while Jordan Veretout's goalbound volley was cleared by Erik Pieters, but that was as good as it got for Villa.

Stoke held on and move five points clear of their opponents, who remain in the relegation zone as the pressure mounts on Sherwood.

Player ratings

Aston Villa: Guzan (6), Crespo (5), Richards (6), Lescott (5), Hutton (5), Veretout (6), Westwood (6), Gueye (5), Amavi (5), Sinclair (5), Gestede (4).

Subs: Grealish (6), Ayew (5), Gil (5).

Stoke: Butland (6), Johnson (7), Cameron (7), Wollscheid (6), Pieters (6), Adam (6), Whelan (6), Diouf (6), Bojan (7), Arnautovic (8), Walters (6).

Subs: Afellay (5), Van Ginkel (6), Joselu (5).

Man of the match: Marko Arnautovic