By Ryan Ghee
August 24 2005

Aston Villa manager David O'Leary was left fuming after Nolberto Solano was given his marching orders after only ten minutes at Fratton Park. O'Leary claimed the decision was a 'joke' and he confirmed that he will appeal against the red card. The match itself was a lively affair and the home side started brightly as Laurent Robert whipped in a number of dangerous crosses in the opening minutes.
Lomana Tresor Lua-Lua should have opened the scoring on 6 minutes but he failed to connect properly with Robert's corner and Sorensen gathered his point-blank effort.
Four minutes later Nolberto Solano was shown a red card for an alleged elbow on Richard Hughes. The Peruvian winger was hauled back by Hughes after making a promising run and he reacted by throwing his arm towards the Portsmouth player. Despite receiving the red card, the free-kick was awarded to Villa and they scored from it only seconds after being reduced to ten men. Barry played the ball towards the head of Phillips but he was beaten to it by Pompey's Richard Hughes who directed the header into his own net.
At the other end Laurent Robert continued to threaten Sorensen's goal but the Villa keeper made sure the score remained the same.
That was up until the 42nd minute when Lua-Lua cut inside the Villa defence and scored with a magnificent curling effort from 20-yards.
Ten-man Villa almost restored the lead a minute later but Whittingham's 30-yard free-kick clipped the top of the crossbar.
David O'Leary decided to change his tactics for the second-half and he replaced Phillips with De la Cruz to tighten up at the back.
Four minutes into the second-half Olof Mellberg almost grabbed his first goal of the season. The Villa skipper met Whittingham's left-wing corner but his header flew inches wide of the upright.
The same player almost scored 15 minutes later but his goal-bound header hit Ridgewell before the ball bounced to safety.
Portsmouth had the best of the final exchanges as Sorensen denied Robert twice in the final 15 minutes and Hughes and Lua-Lua both wasted good chances in the final 2 minutes.

Speaking after the match, O'Leary said, "The sending off was a joke - Nobby Solano off for violent conduct - do me a favour. What I saw was their player all over him and he went down without any contact. He was back on his feet as soon as the red was shown, without a scratch on him.

"But we responded magnificently and my only complaint is that I thought we might have nicked it...I thought it was a battling display from the lads and I was proud of the way they worked so hard after going down to ten men so early.

"Now we have to look at Saturday's game against Blackburn - another tough game - and hopefully we can get three points on the board."