From EPL site: Man City 3 - 1 Aston Villa Foul by Pete Whittingham (Aston Villa) on Sun Jihai (Man City). Power penalty taken right-footed by Nicolas Anelka (Man City) (top-left of goal), scored.
Formation change, indeed-- yet it's done Villa no good. From the sportinglife.com "clockwatch": 66 mins: Johnsen is replaced by Moustapha Hadji. The Morroccan moves to the left wing with Whittingham dropping to left back, Samuel switching to the right and Delaney now partnering Alpay in the middle of defence. I'll see what I can find about the third City goal.
68 mins: GOAL - ANELKA. The striker drives the ball to the opposite side to previously, high to sorensen's right. The Dane gets a good hand to the ball but it is not enough to repel the well-struck shot and the City of Manchester Stadium, filled with the sound of booing less than an hour ago, is happy once more. 67 mins: Whittingham's first move as left back is to bring down Sun Jihai in the area and give City the chance to finish matters.
City make its first sub-- and it's not Reyna, at least not yet... Sibierski on for Barton, on 73 minutes...
Sibierski for Barton. Anelka rounds the keeper,but Alpay clears. Sommeil almost scores from the corner. Reyna sits back down.
No worries, Russ; thank you for the fantastic PbP. Angel has indeed hobbled off, according to my text commentary from the sportinglife.com site.
10 min. left and really no reason to replace anyone.City have been rampant. And as I say that here comes Captain America!!!
About friggin' time, too. Good sub, in the respect that perhaps Reyna will be used in a holding role in midfield, to protect the two-goal lead?
It is now, yeah. Anelka completes his hat-trick-- and from open play, at that... 83 mins: GOAL - ANELKA. Villa give the ball away poorly in their own half and Anelka is put through. He is one-on-one with Alpay and the Turk is reluctant to close him down. Anelka moves to the edge of the area before firing into Sorensen's right-hand corner.
Once again from EPL site: [15:41] Substitution: Man City v Aston Villa Man City substitution: Paulo Wanchope replaced by Claudio Reyna (tactical). That makes me wonder, does the EPL keep stats on the reason for substitutions? If so, what are the other alternatives? Injury is an obvious one. What about: substitued to eliminate pungent odor of player stinking up the pitch.