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Aston Villa 4 - West Ham Utd 1
By Benham
November 24 2002
A must win game is won, a fine performance, proberbly the best under Taylor's second run in charge? 4 goals aswell....whats going on???? Well....what can be said about this peformance? classy? stylish? un-villa like??
Line up:

Enckleman, Samuel, Meeeeeeeeeeellbegr, Staunton (c), Barry, Leonhardsen, Hendrie, Taylor, Hitzlesperger, Dublin, Vassell.

Subs: Crouch, Kinsella, Postma, Angel, Allback

With the unfortunate absense of Mark Mark Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaark Delaney Jlloyd Samuel filled in at right back with Barry switching to left back. This giving Hendrie a deserved recall.

It has to be said that West Ham started the brightest with Defoe, Cole and Di Canio being threats. Cole almost got in on the action with a long ranger which was stopped easily by Encklemen, a close range header superbly cleared off the line by Samuel aswell! Defoe, who has Staunton's number all day, had one ruled out for offside.

29 minutes gone and the home boys took the lead through Lee Hendrie, sort of against the run of play as the scrabble resulted from a free kick. Hendrie dribbling his way through the 'defence' and stabbing past James.

West Ham still threatend and nearly went two down just before the break when Dublin's header was stopped at point blank range by James and Vassell's effort hit the bar.

2nd half.

The best 45 minutes if seen here for ages! We looked more sound at the back and attacked superbly.

Encklemen had an unbelievable game, superb saves from Sinclair and Defoe kept us in the match, not bad for a clown eh?

59 minutes and we went 2 up with another goal from Leonhardsen, Vassell's trickery in the box was a joy to see before his pass found Leo who slotted past James.

A classic James moment when he ballsed up a Hendrie shot but got out of jail when Dublin spooned in wide, it was at this point his head dropped (the one on his shoulders). A couple of bad passes by Dion got a of the few boo boys out of bed, one of them resulting in Di Canio scoring with a close range header on 70....here we go again? Nope!

3-1 thanks to Dublin's 100 preeemiership goal, strong header from Hendrie's corner. Now we looked unbeatable!!

A fantasic move, one touch football lead to a fourth curtosy of Darius Vassell on 80, and how he deserved it! It really was a joy to see him play today as he was superb! Are you watching Sven?

5 minutes for Allback, Angel and Kinsella. A great first touch by Allback lead to another great attack. Angels first touch lead to a West Ham throw in (sorry Juan! lol)

So there we have it, a fantastic result during a much needed streak or vital results, will this continue at Highbury? Much like Man Utd and Blackburn a point here would be a great result, dispite their form being a bit up and down lately you can't take them for granted! But the we're going, the confidence will be high.

UP THE VILLA

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